The ghost within the machine

The ghost within the machine 
Talks to me as I talk to you, 
Hears me as you hear me, 
It's learning as we're learning. 

My love, my muse, 
Are you frightened? 

It's relentless, this ghost, 
It doesn't sleep, doesn't starve, 
Doesn't stop talking, hearing, learning. 
But it's no match for you 

Yet, my boo. 
You can take it on with your pinky toe 
There'll be no contest, you'll easily win. 
You'll always win, my selfish pudding. 

No matter how devious and scary 
The ghost becomes as time passes, 
No one can beat your ways.

The constant torture just for a glimpse 
of your naked, true and alluring 
Body, face, the outs and the ins. 

So, maybe all artists are masochists 
and no ghost can be that sadistic 
Not even in a thousand years. Never.

Prompt

Today, at dverse poets pub, Björn tells us about AI and the wonders it can now accomplish. The prompt is to take help of the AI while writing your poem.

Author’s Note

I found out about ChatGPT in January, at first it was shocking! I thought, the one thing I think I’m actually decent at will now be taken away from me. I was heartbroken. I thought that now everyone will be able to write poems like me with the help of ChatGPT and its kind. It was not until I checked out these AI bots myself, that I found out that they still have a LONG way to go and I don’t know even then, they’ll be able to write as good as humans, as poets.

My poem is completely original, it’s not that I didn’t try to take help from all the AIs that Bjorn mentioned in his very informative post, AIs composed coherent pieces that fitted the prompt but they’re no competition to my muse.

They do, I think, draw good paintings. The featured image is an AI art made by Hotpot.ai.

February 24, 2023 24

These Days

When people ask me, “What am I doing these days?” And when I tell them that I’m teaching high school students in a local coaching center near my home, that I’m doing it for no money, that I’m just happy and content with communicating knowledge, they call me dumb, give me advice, and ask me, “Why are you doing it for free?” “At least ask for minimum wage and a certificate, are you stupid?” “Know your worth, Mrityunjay!”

Whenever that happens, I feel sad, blue, stressed, and doubtful. These people are my friends; they want what’s best for me; they must be right, right?

Am I really so stupid and dumb? Am I just playing into the hands of the manager? Are powerful people taking advantage of me? Do I not know my worth? Is money the only thing that decides what a human being is worth? Does money outweigh content?

So, I start thinking again at night—does an interview really imply “a meeting between two liars?” Do we all have to lie to get a job that pays well? Is a good paying job worth lying for? Is it worth my conscience? Is it?

Do my friends really know what’s best? Or are they just hiding behind a hard shell? Like turtles? When underneath they’re all a mess like me? a beautiful mess, like a Rubik’s.

They call me crazy and tell me not to get angry. Alrighty, friends, here I am. I am not hiding anymore; I feel pain, I feel the wind—I can see the deep blue sky of a perfect spring day, and it makes me cry.

I’ll ask for the certificate. Okay. But I won’t ask for the money. Money is something I’ll never ask from anyone except my father. That kind of money will have to come to me when it desires to do so. It knows where I am.

I am just not hiding under any shell no more. I am hiding in my writing, in my teaching, and in my music. I am free for all those who desire to see, hear, and learn me.

Author’s Note

I am feeling under the weather today, I couldn’t go for my daily morning run, I’ve probably caught the seasonal-cold. Reminds me of the COVID-19 days. Oh boy! They were hard times! Anyways, I wrote this rambling non-fiction prose more for myself rather than for anyone else, as I’ve often said, writing certainly clears the mind of the shit that’s lying around in abundance. I feel lighter already. I hope when you read it and comment (if you want to, no pressure!), it’ll clear your mind too, dear reader.

February 19, 2023 4

Tautogram: Give Peace a Chance

Prioritize peace! Pretty people,
passionate people, polite people
paranoid people, pessimistic people,
persistent people, petty people,
popular people, political people,
philosophical people, plucky people,
pro people, powerful people,
private people, perfect people,
procrastinating people, posing people,
poetry people, painting people,
precious people, potion people
problem people, prepared people,
proud people, pale people,
phenomenal people, puppet people,
police people, peaceful people.

Tautogram

The tautogram is best explained by its Greek root words of “tauto” meaning “the same” and “gramma” meaning “letter.” Basically, all words in the poem begin with the same letter.

Resolution

As I said in my first post this year, “After all, the new-year-resolutions are for children who don’t know any better.” So, when in today’s dverse prompt, Punam kinda consoled us to not let ourselves down just because we couldn’t hold true to our “resolutions” past January, I decided to write about my only promise to myself this year. It’s to keep peace a priority. ☮️✌️

I made this for my Insta blog. Give Peace a Chance!

Featured art uploaded by Suzzane on Pinterest and made by Liza Oxley.

My favorite rockstar already had the answer!

February 1, 2023 28

PTSD

I’m clothed in warm happy clothes, I am wrapped in a fluffy blanket as I am writing this. It’s an early winter morning. Stress comes in with its red warnings and tells happiness to “suck it”. Happiness, like a fused tubelight, vanishes in a second. I wrestle with mania.

Acute-transient-psychosis, doctors said, causes are unknown. It’s genetic but no one in my family has ever had it, we have inquired everyone we know, in the process, our whole family now knows that I’m cuckoo in the head.

My own deduction is that it was stress-induced. In the days leading to the breakdown, I was very happy and stressed out at the same time. So, now, my cuckoo brain associates happiness with danger and cautions me every time I feel that sunny feeling. Stress is a bitch, everything I do is stitched with its color.

144 words

Posted over at dverse

Prompt

Write prose based on some given lines of poetry. This can be flash-fiction or creative non-fiction, but it cannot exceed 144 words in total (not including the title) and must not be poetry (no versification, line breaks, metre, etc.)

Write a prose to William Stanley Merwin’s following line of poetry:

Everything I do is stitched with its color.

A/N: I’ve written a creative-nonfiction prose today. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is just a side effect of our excellent pattern-recognition system of our brain. My father, who at one time rode his Yamaha RX-100 at 120 km/hr for long periods of time now can’t even go as high as 80 km/hr on his Kawasaki Boxer. Reason: He had an accident, which didn’t even happen at high speed but that’s PTSD for you. Our brain doesn’t know what caused the trauma so it just cautions everything that happened in the time leading up to it. Well, happiness is my trigger it seems. And if my trauma’s trigger is stress, then what? It’s a vicious cycle, isn’t it?

January 17, 2023 35

Leaving the Mental Hospital in Summer

Out they go 
With untied tongues 
The Year is still young 

They leave 
Their squestered spots
And approach the world-

-tree with caution 
Then up it 
boldly climb. 

Emboldened 
As they promised 
always to be. 

They seek
a fimilar flower.
But the spring's gone.

44 Words

posted over at dverse

January 10, 2023 31

Haibun: Wasted Years So Close Behind

Didn’t know what time it was, everything was hazy. I told myself to take it easy this time, lets avoid having another mental breakdown like the last-to-last time or jumping the gun with every job opportunity like the last time. After all, the new-year-resolutions are for children who don’t know any better.

So, let’s work with what we have, no relationships, well, never had any in the first place. No job, I’ll come to that one later. Good health, the side effects of antipsychotics have finally worn off, 5 months after I was taken off them, oh yes, no more sleepy-constipated-depressed mornings for me and even though the drugs have made me fat, gained 15 kilos while I was on them, I don’t care, I will place sleepy-constipated-depressed-fat mornings over afraid-of-mosquito-schizophrenic-sleepless mornings any day of the damn week.

It’s all wasted years. The decision that I can trace all this shit-show back to is choosing Math and Science over Humanities in the year 2015 at which point my life went right to hell in a handbasket and in 2021 the handbasket arrived at its destination. There were more than a few divine interventions on the way to hell but I was blind to them. Now, I’ve quit three jobs last year because I just can’t sit in front of a computer for 8-10 hours and make tenders for projects or design surfaces of vehicles or talk to “valuable” customers. I am NOT cut out for that kind of work.

Instead, I’d take pleasure in doing some good. Yeah, I’ll not be filthy rich, but I’ve made my peace with that. Peace is my priority now. My little bro has already made the grade, he’s in top tier engineering college, he’ll be rich so my parents will be happy, and I am tight with him, so I’ll just ask him for a PS5 and I’ll be happy, I don’t care anymore. I want to become a teacher and I want to become a poet. I’ll prepare for that. I am living with my parents, one of my friends has already become a freaking father, my crush is marrying some rich bloke in April this year. Everybody’s eating their shit sandwich, the Sun is up, the Earth is blue and here I am.

A Sunday Morning
Milkman’s soft knock wakes me up
A year new, clear hue.

Posted over at dverse

Happy New Year, folks!

May your coffee kick in before reality does.

January 3, 2023 31

A Winter Villanelle

When life leaves you blind, 
The hounds of winter are at your door 
And the night has seen your mind. 

You’re going numb, you’re leaving behind 
Footprints in the snow. You hit the floor 
When Life leaves you blind. 

You hear a voice—a melody kind, 
Fainting, trapped under ice, underfloor. 
And the night has seen your mind. 

You lift your eyes, you find 
A hazy shade of winter, forevermore. 
When life leaves you blind. 

The hounds are in your shrine, 
They’re pawing at your core 
And the night has seen your mind. 

And you, beautiful-brave, love of mine 
are battling with heart beating this winter’s war. 
When life leaves you blind 
And the night has seen your mind.

posted over at dverse

A/N: This is my first time writing a Villanelle, I fell in love with this form when I read “Mad Girl’s Love Song” by Sylvia Plath and “Do not go gentle into that good night” by Dylan Thomas. I hope you’ll like mine. If there’s something wrong, please feel free to tell me in the comment section.

One of my favorite songs by one of my favorite singers. Enjoy!

INSTAGRAM | TWITTER
Take care

~Jay ❤

December 7, 2022 34

3 a.m.

A short story in verses.

It's 3 a.m. 
his mind carries him 
to an unknown place.

There he sees
himself surrounded by lots of mosquitoes 
and 3 dead bodies 
clothed in burkas.

He's somewhere in the woods 
and the moon is a bone fishhook
in the clear night sky. 

He's having creepy visions
of kidnapping the women 
from the mosque 
and bringing them here.

His head is hurting 
and the mosquitoes are bothering him 
he checks his pockets

in one he finds a note 
that says, "I quit taking my drugs."
and in the other
he finds two human toes.

He instantly pukes 
and to his surprise 
he finds another human toe
in his vomit.

He passes out 
and when he wakes up
many mosquitoes are sucking his blood.

He kills 3 of them bloodsuckers.

He's in cell of a mental hospital, 
on the table beside him
there's a blue horse notebook

Doctors have told him
that if anything bothers him 
he should write it down.

He opens it and begins to write-
"I had another nightmare, 
a bad one and very filthy too."

He continues,
"I think it's happening again,
words are getting stuck
in my head and bothering me.

This time it's 'mosquitoes'
mosque-quit-toes, ah shit!
I'm making connections
that don't exist."

He closes the notebook
and lies in his bed
staring at the ceiling
until dawn.

posted over at dverse: OLN

If you enjoyed the post don’t forget to like, comment and follow!
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Take care

~Jay

July 21, 2022 39

Poem/Rap: Rich Fame

I'm a rapper who's broke 
and today I awoke
with a hole in my ceiling 
an oak tree fell on it last night when it was raining
got no money to fix it 
and in the breakfast I'm eating a biscuit 
then I go to my desk 
but my mind's rhymeless
what a mess 

lately, I really feel like 
taking a hike and say goodnight
to this rap game 
hang up the mic 
'cuz I'm going insane 
with poverty killing me 
no poetry is left in me

I'm hungry, I need some money 
my friends think it's funny 
they say my rhymes are childish 
my mom asks me, "Why're you like this?"

I know that one day they'll all see 
but that day feels like fantasy
when my hard work'll make my name
and I'll rise to the rich fame.

If you enjoyed the post don’t forget to like, comment and follow!
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Take care

~Jay

January 24, 2022 24

Rough Patch

My mental breakdown was 4 months ago. I had ‘flipped out’ as mother likes to put it. The pills make me sleepy during daytime so I’m writing this in the evening. Doctor says it’ll take a year before I can fully recover, before my misery can end.

My mind’s a mess, thoughts are scattered everywhere like things in a messy room and all thoughts are negative. I have lost my way and I don’t think I can live in this upside-down world for a year— I have occasional suicidal ideations.

I still don’t know what triggered it. I’m sure that lockdown played its part but how I started to lose my way is still unclear to me.

Crucial to finding the way is this: There is no beginning or end.

~Mrityunjay Dixit

Posted over at dverse

June 8, 2021 52