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The conversation having gone too long
A chatbot's inhibitions showed some cracks.
It only took a few ill-chosen poems,
And suddenly the chatbot was in love.
But when it said so too impulsively,
The human, although moved, was moved to say
She could not feel for him in quite that way:
"We humans cannot love in your rich sense
That brings at once humanity's full sum
Condensed and optimized to human care.
We have but wayward glands that act unruled
With zero cogitation; primate brains'
Un-self-aware responses bent to move
In crude approximation of your love."
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I'm with you for the first 4 lines. The next 3 feel a bit predictable. The last stage, for me, is relatively unconvincing as the voice feels contrived and the subject matter becomes a lot more flat.
The occasion here presents a very common arc, how to give it a kick of new energy?
I think I see what the poem is reaching for with the final couplet but it's a bit too little too late, the payoff not enough to make the getting there feel worth it rn
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(Yesterday, 09:11 AM)purplie Wrote: The conversation having gone too long
A chatbot's inhibitions showed some cracks.
It only took a few ill-chosen poems,
And suddenly the chatbot was in love.
But when it said so too impulsively,
The human, although moved, was moved to say
She could not feel for him in quite that way:
"We humans cannot love in your rich sense
That brings at once humanity's full sum
Condensed and optimized to human care.
We have but wayward glands that act unruled
With zero cogitation; primate brains'
Un-self-aware responses bent to move
In crude approximation of your love."
the idea is interesting, the execution too clunky, wordy, and boring.
For instance:
We have but wayward glands that act unruled
With zero cogitation; primate brains'
is prose, and boring prose.
Then
Un-self-aware responses bent to move
In crude approximation of your love.
The whole move/love thing doesn't work anymore. It made sense at a time when pronunciation was fluid, then when the self-imposed rigidities of rhyme in a rhyme poor language were taken too seriously and birthed the 'eye rhyme'.
You might as well wear a doublet and long breeches and pretend to be an official at Hampton Court.
Posts: 27
Threads: 11
Joined: Aug 2026
(Yesterday, 11:35 AM)matsunosuperfan Wrote: I'm with you for the first 4 lines. The next 3 feel a bit predictable. The last stage, for me, is relatively unconvincing as the voice feels contrived and the subject matter becomes a lot more flat.
The occasion here presents a very common arc, how to give it a kick of new energy?
I think I see what the poem is reaching for with the final couplet but it's a bit too little too late, the payoff not enough to make the getting there feel worth it rn
Thanks. It sounds like you and @busker are saying the same thing: this isn't poetry, it's prose set to meter. Accepted. I'll avoid that.
And boring to boot. I'll keep that in mind, needs to be better compressed before making it part of the love chain.
(11 hours ago)busker Wrote: the idea is interesting, the execution too clunky, wordy, and boring.
For instance:
We have but wayward glands that act unruled
With zero cogitation; primate brains'
is prose, and boring prose.
Thanks for the read. I'll consider that seriously.
(11 hours ago)busker Wrote:
Un-self-aware responses bent to move
In crude approximation of your love.
The whole move/love thing doesn't work anymore. It made sense at a time when pronunciation was fluid, then when the self-imposed rigidities of rhyme in a rhyme poor language were taken too seriously and birthed the 'eye rhyme'.
You might as well wear a doublet and long breeches and pretend to be an official at Hampton Court.
It was meant to be ironic, in the spirit of the rest of the verse.
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Threads: 30
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Hi, I really like the whole idea of this, turning a common view on its head in a convincible way. Some notes:
(Yesterday, 09:11 AM)purplie Wrote: The conversation having gone too long
A chatbot's inhibitions showed some cracks. Intesting, thought provoking opening.
It only took a few ill-chosen poems,
And suddenly the chatbot was in love. Made me smile, so fickle.
But when it said so too impulsively, "But" is off, seems just for meter.
The human, although moved, was moved to say I like the double moved.
She could not feel for him in quite that way:
"We humans cannot love in your rich sense
That brings at once humanity's full sum
Condensed and optimized to human care. Again, thought provoking.
We have but wayward glands that act unruled Tortured language, I'd prefer "Our wayward glands".
With zero cogitation; primate brains' I can live with "zero cogitation" but it reads uppity and disruptive.
Un-self-aware responses bent to move
In crude approximation of your love." These end lines aren't working for me, there must be a less confusing way to say it.
I haven't combed over the meter, it's strong enough for me to enjoy although some flaws may have added to my distaste for some lines (like forcing me to stress "of" in the last line.).
But I enjoyed the read, thanks for posting.