Not Quite AI in the Antique Shop

There is a box of them.
Types and stamps from another age,
where more was done by hand and eye
than algorythm and automation.

Symbols of a time past, a place
you still live in, where painting is done
with brushes and passion,
and words struggle with heart to find their way to print,

Few will notice the difference, or if they do
they will note the perfection of machine work,
and the imperfection of what you lay on paper and canvas,
all the while missing that that is the very point

In any human endeavor.

About this poem.

I have always said perfection is over rated. Some of the most wonderful events and things I have created or lived came out of mistakes, imperfection. The most wonderful people I know are, like myself, a collection of flaws.

AI is taking the world by storm. Like most technologies, it progresses faster than our ability to understand what the changes mean. As a writer/artist/pastor, I wonder what happens to the imperfect of the world? Which is most of us.

The picture was taken in my favorite Antique shop, a place called Loot in Turner’s Falls that sells items from factories and schools that date to the industrial age.

From all that, this poem.

Tom