Eclipse

Existential dread, a shadow in the dawn, Questions whispered, where do we belong?

Continuous flow, the river to the sea, A journey ever onward, relentlessly.

Lost in the desert, sun a merciless eye, Searching for an oasis, a reason to not die.

Imposing silence, mountains pierce the sky, Ancient guardians whispering as ages fly.

Possibility, a seed beneath the ground, Hope that takes root, a future yet unbound.

Silent tears fall, unseen in the night, Aching hearts yearning for solace and light.

Exodus, a migration under the moon's soft glow, Seeking a new beginning, a place where dreams can grow.

Self Identification:

This poem is a collaboration between myself (the prompt writer) and Gemini (Google's AI-like Chatgpt). Note that I am a fierce anti-AI non-advocate but every once in a while I like to have fun with the tools to see what it will do with a prompt. This is one such time. For those interested, the prompt took a long time to get the results I wanted but in the end, I came up with a product that was acceptable to me. To me, the difficulty proved that programs like Gemini and Chatgpt are dumb, really dumb. I also wasn't familiar with the term "acrostic" and I wanted to experiment.

Note that I am not submitting this to the competition.

Randy Kaplan