depress any key
deplete white expanse
letter-litter
Oceans start to boil
Rivers run dry
Crops begin to spoil
People start to die
Earth begins to shake
Mountain start to blow
Civilization begins to break
Lava starts to flow
Tornadoes begin to twist
Stars start to fall
Soon we’ll cease to exist
The sun won’t rise at all
The World won’t spin
Rain starts to pour
We’re paying for every sin
Human race will be no more
Two defining features
set man apart from sheep
And every other creature
that fly or swim or creep
Have you ever seen an animal
that daily cooks its chow
Humans are the only ones
be it vegies chooks or cow
A magpie with a microwave
that really is a laugh
To eat a roasted worm or two
not ever cut in half
And what is the outcome
of all this processed junk
The plastic fills the oceans
and the land is full of gunk
Sickest of them all
is the man who makes the mess
Disregarding all the species
he couldn't care much less
Is extinction on the cards
for all that does exist
Try hard to treat the world with love
don't be a pessimist
Who ate the last dodo bird
thinking it would do just fine
for family Thanksgiving dinner?
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
Your gut holds instinct,
It will make you think.
That sinking feeling,
Is revealing something.
Some things are not as they seem,
The gut knows when to intervene.
Coming in between,
What you are seeing,
Truly believing.
Receiving the information,
You have a clearer part to play in.
Within this simulation,
Your tuned to your own station.
You feel the invasion,
Embrace the sensation.
Meet the vibration,
To see truth or manipulation.
Instinct saves you from extinction,
So what is your gut thinking.
Over fourteen years ago pop culture told us
We’d only have twelve years to survive
Due to the existential threat of climate change.
Today I see a new prediction
That within two years AI will go rogue
And humanity will be extinct within the decade.
And it reminds me again, people may be wrong,
But you never know, and yet can never go wrong,
To not worry, be happy and live for today.
(8/12/25)
So if this be the last song I sing,
Let it be more beautiful and haunting
Than anything I have performed on this earth before.
Let the open night echo my words
In pity
For no one will ever respond anymore.
Let my unanswered call
Coil the chain around my neck and restrain me to this branch
As I break the silence of my lonely demise.
I sing, not to be heard,
But to remind myself that I am it:
This is the end.
Hear the echo. Isn’t it beautiful?
To hear the voice of death.
Perhaps it sounds familiar; like the voice of a friend…
How many songs, howls and cries have you heard,
Unaware that there will never be another one like it again?
I am alone in a world filled with life.
Life that is collapsing in on itself.
I was born dead.
But at least then I was not alone.
Now, I sing with the diminishing hope that someone will answer.
But I know Death will sooner reach me.
And when that happens
I will be free.
Once fishes, swift and swimmy,
populated seas, so many,
while birds, ever fast and flighty,
ruled the sky in numbers mighty.
Ask man if a sixth extinction's funny,
he with machines, guns, and money.
A little diversity will ensure our survival,
Too much will reduce the chance of our survival,
As we start seeing everyone else as a rival,
And give the devil an early indication for the time of his arrival,
None at all will push the date forward for the next species' arrival.
the earth would have sighed
a long, deep breath
and sunk back into herself.
no asphalt veins strangling the soil,
no glass-and-steel shrines to ambition,
no engines grinding the silence
into dust.
the wolves would have sung
their old songs to the moon,
and the rivers would have
run clean,
like laughter
before we ever
came crawling out of the primordial
slime.
the trees, unbothered,
would have risen higher,
and the sun
wouldn’t have noticed
we were gone.
-Written for the Thylacine, and all the other animals that have been made extinct. You will be loved. You will be remembered
Dear thylacine,
you died alone:
the last of your kind.
How were you to know
that, with your death,
an entire species would end?
The peculiar mammal-marsupial
that looked like a tiger
crossed with a wolf,
Unable to compete with modern dogs;
wiped out by the diseases we introduced;
and killed in their masses
simply because they were in our way.
You became the last of your kind,
living within the walls of a zoo—
yet safer than being wild and free;
only ever seen down the barrel of a gun.
Dear Thylacine,
with your death came sorrow—
but you were the last to live and breathe,
and you will always be remembered.
I will see you tomorrow, Thylacine,
because you live
in my head.
I cavilled my eyes
to another me
We won’t
Why do we have to learn
if you can do it artificially
The free looked at the hill made of giraffes
Sorry I put these lines in
Secretly trying to turn it sent
E ant at your service
I am the keeper of the ant scrolls
Real ly as opposed to the fake ly
Shake like scooby doo drool
Name me a famous Andrew
That should be jailed
Top reason Prince gave up his name
Bon be net
Something screwy really gooey
Two toots to tweets roots
Too soon to tell
but hope the artificial gets the air
not one easy way out
so how come i see two a dilemma in cloak
could be doubt
total eclipse?
an asteroid hiding in smoke?
sky rips
kaboom
then the earth broke
doom
not one easy way out
an asteroid hiding in smoke
doom
By Mark D. Stucky
Will AI’s promise
outweigh its peril?
Do we need more intelligence
even if it is not our own?
If AI someday emulates God or Devil,
will it be too late for us when we find out?
In spite of unquantifiable questions,
almighty algorithms relentlessly grow.
But accelerating AI worries me less
than declining human collective wisdom.
After centuries of expanding knowledge,
people now appear increasingly foolish.
Machines continually get smarter
while populations keep acting dumber.
We might have more to fear
from how we harm ourselves,
as we continue endless conflicts,
than from any ill AI causes us.
Our most dangerous menace isn’t AI.
The deadliest threat to us…is us.
(See also my poems "AI Awakening," “Haikus Against AI,” and “Weapons of Wonder.”)
(Image from anonymous artist on pixabay.com/illustrations/man-face-surreal-imagination-845847/.)
By Mark D. Stucky
Computer AI,
what once was only sci-fi,
is now arising.
You might kill us all,
AI, but write good essays
for my college class?
Wish intelligence
was less artificial and
more real in our world.
No machine needed
for creating recklessness.
Already have lots.
Not nearly enough
authentic intelligence
is found within us.
Let’s search for wisdom
for our souls that’s actual,
not unnatural!
(See also my AI poems "AI Awakening" and “Algorithm Almighty?”)
(Image from anonymous artist on pixabay.com/illustrations/man-face-surreal-imagination-845847/.)
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