Two Versions of The Comet: Dark and Light

Photo by Nick Owuor (astro.nic.visuals) on Unsplash

A few weeks back I devoted a lot of my spare time experimenting with an "intelligent machine" (A.I. program/bot) called Sudowrite. The program can create poetry and can write fiction, among other things. I found the poetry writing feature easy to use and ceaselessly entertaining. 

What you would do is feed it the first three or four or five lines and then hit enter. 20 seconds later you will have Sudowrite's inventive creation. Sometimes the poems would be lengthy, and sometimes brief. Sometimes they seem inspired, and other times  quite dark. 

Here is an example of how dark Sudowrite can get. The first poem here is one of my own. In the second Sudowrite takes a stab at completing my opening lines. 

The Comet

My appearance is as one who knows no center,
no allegiance -- racing as I do through vacant
expanses of cold and darkness, through the deep silence.
Then suddenly, in the fullness of time, I return,
my face filled with force, ferocious with intent,
doubling back on my trail, direct... Sunward

while my nine brothers plod along in their orbits,
predictable and staid, none draws so near as I
to the glory -- nor does one know, as do I,
the height and depth and width and breadth
of God's vast universe.

My appearance is as one who knows no center,
but it’s only an illusion, for no matter how far I explore,
inevitably I return, daring to draw near with unveiled face.

The Comet (AI Collaboration)

My appearance is as one who knows no center,

no allegiance -- racing as I do through vacant

expanses of cold and darkness, through the deep silence.

Then suddenly, in the fullness of time, I return,

to the exact same place I departed, and find myself

here, here, under these same stars; and we, who were

so many and so beautiful, we who knew such joy and such

love, we who were living like gods, we are now dead.

                                        * * * 

One thing for certain... the A.I. is always full of surprises.