Dear Brian
My only clue to you
courtesy of Google Maps
is that you live in a bungalow
on a tree-lined avenue
nicely displaying Autumn colours
on which slender basis I choose
to send you this AI vision
of a post-apocalyptic Knaresborough
(a nearby town in Yorkshire.)
The iconic railway viaduct
subducting beneath invading trees
a tiny signal box, brick-built
the last remaining trace
of civilization – so if we heed not
signs of climate change –
we may yet face this devastation…
Much Love
Andrew
© Andrew Wilson, 2024
This last year, both I and many poets I know (in the Internet sense as opposed to the real world or the biblical), have started illustrating their work using AI images whose results are sometimes so stunning as to distract from the poems being illustrated. So are we shooting ourselves in the foot, gilding the lily…
The Poetry Postcard Fest is a challenge which encourages poets to write an unedited poem on a postcard and send it to a stranger. It is organised by the Cascadia Poetics Lab, which arranges the participants into lists of 31 + yourself for you to address your offerings to. This was my second year and I was on List 10. The lists are sent out in early July and you have until the end of August to send out your poetic missives – to date I have received 18 of 31 possibles and now that we are into September, it is allowable to share the cards and poems you sent.
Although the original poem is to be sent as written – crossings out, blots and all, I have typed them out for people who can’t read my writing and I am allowing myself to edit if I feel like it…