I soar the mist, wing torn
plague-tainted cloth flapping
shooing the toxic trail
of velvet moths aglow
their soft coos and rustling wings
so peaceful, filled with death
They weave my erratic, desperate dance
a tattered ribbon through the sky
I heave above the fog
antenna vibrate against me
harsh waves lament mourning ghosts
as I dive into the cleansing sea
AI Statement: As with other poems that I’ve written using idea generators, I do not find that AI provides original enough lines, and verses come out banal. In this case, I fed it a very short line and/or descriptor. I wasn’t sure what I was writing when I started, but the AI versions serve better showing what not to do. I asked the AI to finish the poem and then pulled strands and words to create something new, perhaps slightly faster than I would have otherwise. For me, AI serves as an idea spur, or to unblock the mind, not as a writer in its own right.
Colleen Anderson is a Canadian author writing fiction and poetry and has had numerous poems published in such venues as Grievous Angel, Polu Texni, The Future Fire, StarLine and many others. The Canada Council and BC Arts Council have given her grants for writing.
She has performed her work before audiences in the US, UK and Canada and has been nominated for the Aurora, Dwarf Stars and Rhysling Awards in poetry, and placed in the Balticon, Rannu, Crucible and Wax poetry competitions.
Colleen also enjoys editing, and co-edited Canadian anthologies Playground of Lost Toys (Aurora nominated) and Tesseracts 17, and her solo anthology Alice Unbound: Beyond Wonderland. She has served on both Stoker Award and British Fantasy Award juries, and guest edited Eye to the Telescope. Her short story collection, A Body of Work was published by Black Shuck Books, UK. Her first poetry collection, I Dreamed a World, came out in 2022 from LVP Publications.
Living in Vancouver, BC, Colleen keeps an eye out for mold monsters and mermaids.