New Creative Works Added Today

Today marks an bit of a milestone in my creative journey as I add several new works to my digital archive. I think this pretty much brings me up to date with all the short stories and poetry I’ve written (that I know about) so great! All now in one place on my own site, not spread all over the internet!

This collection covers stuff from around 2019 to 2022 - so just before Covid, and to around the time when we all started to collectively breathe again.

Context and Background

Most of these come from two sources - the Poetizer app that I posted things onto on and off for several years, and a small experiment, where I hoped that OpenAI’s Dall-E would give me a bit more inspiration than it actually did! Still, I really like the death bread car image that it created. It was around Hallowe’en time, so I guess the novelty wore off with the passing of Samhain!

The Poetizer App Experience: I began using Poetizer, a mobile app for submitting poems with a built-in rating system, before the Coronavirus pandemic. This platform inspired me to write more poetry and experiment with different styles and themes. While the app eventually became subscription-based and the scoring system felt somewhat off-putting, it played a crucial role in motivating my poetic output during that time. The style didn’t always fit perfectly with my natural voice, but the experience was invaluable for creative growth.

The Dalipoetry.com Experiment: In contrast to the free-flowing app environment, I created a brief personal website called dalipoetry.com as an experiment in self-publishing poetry based on AI-generated images.

I.e. generated by Dall-E - just when it started getting a bit more interesting - Sorry, I knew it was a cringey pun at the time, but I just couldn’t help myself!

This platform allowed me a bit of structured (and I hoped inspiration-based) creative freedom and included some personal notes from the poems, offering deeper insight into my specific creative process during the experiment, and a bit of context behind each piece. I mean, it was two poems, so it obviously didn’t gel all that well! I think I got fed up of the ’not quite good enough’ images I was getting, which kind of dampened the creative spirit more than inspired it in the end.

Plus I had the attention span of a squirrel in a nut factory. I blame covid!

Just in case you were wondering, yep - I am AI generating the blurb around each poem. It has helped me get this collection together - something I have been putting off for a while - so I can’t really complain if on occasion, the output is a little less than fully representing my voice. Maybe in another 10 Gigawatt processor-farm’s time. I mean, it’s better than three months ago now, so - kudos where it belongs.

I’m using kilocode at the moment to help out with this process - it’s not just for code you know! I’m using the ‘Code Supernova’ free model - the last one was Grok fast 1, so maybe this will be another Grok model. I’ve avoided using free models up until now, but I’m not so worried about the model learning from my creative works tbh - it’s not like I’m a literary genius making bundles for a publishing firm who’ll be disgruntled by me doing this, after all.

So there we have it. Oh - if you don’t like salacious and distasteful, you might want to select your reading carefully from this collection - when I was adding them, I noticed some were a bit, erm - disquieting. I think designed to be in some cases - I was trying different things out on Poetizer to see what people liked. Turns out not my kind of poetry, by and large!!!

If you want a good summary of the pandemic, try Blind Slat Blues

Poetizer App Poems

• Clouds and Dicks — A candid exploration of rejection and boundaries, recounting an awkward encounter where the speaker firmly but kindly declines a drug-fueled sexual advance, highlighting the contrast between genuine connection and superficial desire.
• Why — A philosophical meditation on the nature of truth and proof, examining how childhood curiosity and questioning can unravel established certainties, presented in a concise, axiom-like structure that questions the foundations of knowledge.
• Rollershatner — A humorous tribute to William Shatner, envisioning an ideal of aging gracefully with irreverence and reinvention. The poem celebrates living boldly, embracing absurdity, and maintaining a playful spirit throughout life’s later chapters.
• Stalled Flight — A contemplative journey over the French countryside, blending aerial observations with introspective musings. The poem explores the intersection of geography and memory, using the stalled flight as a metaphor for moments of pause and reflection in life’s journey.
• Last Night's Chocolate — A sensual, playful poem that uses chocolate as a metaphor for intimate connection and transience. The imagery evokes both the sweetness and impermanence of physical relationships, blending humor with erotic undertones in a lighthearted exploration of desire.
• A Memory Before Sleep — A poignant reflection on memory and loss, capturing fleeting moments of connection with a lost loved one that appear only at midnight, like fragments of radio static, exploring the bittersweet nature of remembering those who are gone.
• Anticipation — A sensual poem exploring desire and intimacy through simple, evocative imagery of sweat, pretzels, and wine, building anticipation for connection in a moment of shared vulnerability and longing.
• Blind Slat Blues — A minimalist reflection on division and unity, using the metaphor of window blinds to suggest that a world divided horizontally needs perspective and movement to find wholeness and understanding.
• Brexit — A satirical political commentary on Brexit, portraying disillusioned older generations clinging to faded symbols of power while the world moves forward, critiquing nationalism and the passage of time through vivid, metaphorical imagery.
• Chain Music — A meditative exploration of suffering and hope, using the metaphor of chains creating music through their movement to suggest that even pain and hardship can produce beauty and meaning in the grand symphony of existence.
• Cold — A stark, unflinching depiction of death and intimacy, capturing the final moments of a loved one’s passing with raw physical detail that explores the boundary between life, death, and human connection.
• Cozy — A reflection on love, death, and technology, contrasting the comfort of books and code with the inevitability of loss, exploring how both human relationships and digital creations must eventually fade away.
• Cross Meditation — A nature-inspired meditation on interconnectedness and growth, using the metaphor of a tree’s leaves and roots to explore themes of life, transformation, and the unity of all living things in their struggle to exist and thrive.
• Diet — A dark, visceral exploration of cannibalism and madness, delving into themes of consumption, love, and psychological horror through grotesque imagery that blurs the boundaries between love, violence, and self-destruction.
• Fat-tastic — A personal reflection on body image and shame, exploring the journey from public humiliation to private self-improvement, contrasting external judgments with internal motivation and the reality of personal health choices.
• Forgotten — A minimalist commentary on endings and cultural shifts, using the metaphor of a book being pulped to reflect on the fate of forgotten ideas and movements, ending with a poignant reference to Brexit.
• France — A heartfelt expression of homecoming and belonging, capturing the relief and joy of returning to familiar places and loved ones after travel, celebrating the simple comfort of home and connection.
• High — A tender moment of connection captured in simple dialogue and observation, exploring how love can be found in the most ordinary exchanges, like lying on the ground looking at the sky together.
• I'm Home — A poetic celebration of domestic intimacy and return, weaving together sensory details of home - from discharged watches to the sound of tires on roads - culminating in the warmth of a welcoming kiss.
• Middle Manager Dreams — A sharp observation of office politics and human nature, exploring the contrast between outward professionalism and inner vulnerability, using vivid imagery to capture the complex dynamics of workplace relationships.
• Portrait — A contemplative piece on identity and inheritance, exploring how individual personality emerges from the complex interplay of family genetics and personal experience, questioning the nature of selfhood.
• Six of the Best — A poignant six-word story in poetic form exploring grief and loss, using the Hemingway challenge format to capture the devastating impact of a baby’s death on a family with stark, emotional brevity.
• Streams of Meaning — A reflective meditation on life’s purpose and daily maintenance of meaning, exploring themes of work, nature, home, and creativity through the metaphor of streams flowing through various aspects of existence.
• Two Grue Morning — An atmospheric nature poem capturing the mysterious beauty of early morning, using vivid imagery of shadows, trees, and autumn elements to explore the threshold between night and day.
• Aardvarks and Aasvogels — A poignant reflection on childhood trauma and finding solace in imagination. The poem uses animal imagery and childhood toys as anchors of stability amid memories of abuse, exploring themes of resilience and the power of memory to both wound and heal.

Dalipoetry.com Poems

• Death Bread Car — A whimsical yet dark poem inspired by AI-generated imagery, exploring themes of death, labor, and the supernatural through the metaphor of a cursed vehicle that demands constant work from its victims, blending horror with social commentary.
• Ghost with a Pumpkin Hat — A playful Halloween-themed poem inspired by AI art, following a mischievous ghost’s adventure with a pumpkin hat and broomstick, exploring themes of identity, reality, and the supernatural through humorous and imaginative storytelling.

Story

• I Will Eat Your Children — A dark supernatural thriller following a mysterious assassin with extraordinary powers who encounters a young girl and her mother on an airplane. The story explores themes of identity, power, and the hidden darkness within ordinary situations, building to a climactic mission that reveals the assassin’s complex moral code.