by Dada de Dada
He lurks deep & to their right
Drowning fools plain in sight
Behind the eyes, ambition dark
Hungry is this prowling shark
Silver tongue and rictus grin
Cutting words for skins so thin
Each phrase a measured blade
Each slice so keenly made
Blood flowing from his every bite
Panicked shoals, make urgent flight
With polished charm, he dons his mask
Inviting swimmers to share the task
His tale, however, with hidden sting
Proclaims himself ocean king
So he circles prey with careful grace
Malign intent behind grinning face
A hunter’s mind, a message stark
Incisions from the great white shark
Silky words from mouth unfold
Painting pictures of futures gold
His shape bathed in surface light
But shadows cast betray the night
For every speech the waters part
Bypassing brain but grasping heart
He struts & preens, controls the floor
Hears adulation, hears power roar
He feels their pain, makes call to fight
Exposing razor teeth with savage bite
In waters deep, once calm and clear
His eloquence both sharp and sheer
Creates turbulence & waves so high
The swimmers hear no warning cry
As the shark glides on with graceful ease
Excreting words, and its disease
With every turn, his voice refined
A hunter’s wit, a sharpened mind
No need for teeth to tear apart
For language is the deadly art
A single phrase, a crafted line
Will twist the truth, distort the sign
For though he swims with poised remark
Beware the poison word of this great white shark.
About
There are many articulate sharks swimming in the world’s political seas. I leave it to the reader to allocate the verse to their chosen hero or villain.
In my previous article Struggle in the Labyrinth I described how I had used OpenAI’s ChatGPT4 as a quasi muse (or should that be an AiMuse?). So, for those interested in how AI can influence the creation of everything, reading that article may provide some useful background; or at least some food for thought.
I attempted to repeat the same image generation process from ChatGPT using each verse as part of a prompt, e.g. ‘please generate an image based on the following extract from a poem about a politician who has been described as an articulate shark’). I expected that my prompt would then generate an image specification for OpenAI’s other AI product DALL-E3 and a minute later a custom creation would appear. But no. DALL-E3 analysed my Articulate Shark verse as contravening its user policy. Now that was interesting because it was ChatGPT that was generating the image prompt based on its analysis of my verses. We had in effect got one AI product of the same company contravening the user policy as decided by another AI product of the same company. Excellent stuff!
I persisted and ChatGPT suddenly came back with an offer to modify its output specification so that the more anodyne portrayal of articulate sharks as used in this posting could be generated. I don’t know what blood curdling image specification was initially being generated in the background but, if it ever happens again I will remember to ask ChatGPT to reveal its specifcation for the image. 😀