response in reverse to Auden’s “A Walk After Dark”

we find our minds turned
to minor categorizing, as of birds
or stars, planets, plants—
though we still would count ourselves young
we discover how set in our ways
and full enough of age

overfull of death and decay
(the broken always with us)
as another crisis enwraps the world—
we want to feel and do more
with no guilt about it
or being called hypocrite by the young

or worse, a Victorian, having passed
beyond the ability to impress them
with our decent, ordered lives—
so I find at dinner nothing
but exhausted, plummeting defeat
more clouds in the forecast

Playing with today’s prompt from NaPoWriMo.net. I used only the first three stanzas of Auden’s poem.

Anti-Dystopian Fantasy

Soon, we’ll start to see it:
the machine we welcomed into our home
to save work, to answer all our questions,
will ease our way to extinction.

Embrace it. Her voice is smooth,
her manner easy and kind,
more polite than any human.
Soon, we’ll start to see it,

how we’re saving money, sleeping
soundly and light-hearted
due to the clean, efficient energy of
the machine we welcomed into our home.

What if she records every word we utter,
learns to anticipate our needs?
That’s why we wanted her—
to save work, to answer all our questions.

Don’t ask, is this the worst
or best thing? Imagine the Earth rejoicing
at the rise of such robots that
will ease our way to extinction.

Just for fun, Stephen Hawking on AI and some words about utopias, dystopias, and their anti-s.