Author: Frank Hubeny

I enjoy walking, poetry and short prose as well as taking pictures with my phone.

The Monster’s Return

My little daughter goes to sleep.
I hope that monster doesn’t creep
Back to her bed to say, “Hello!”
She tells me that it’s wicked, though.

Now in her dreams, she starts to see
That monster dancing gracefully,
Until it slips on floppy feet,
Then thinks it needs something to eat.

“But don’t eat me!” She looks at it.
“I’m not that tasty.” So, they sit.
It says it’s never had a friend.
No one can trust it in the end.

It starts to weep and she looks sad.
She hurries off to tell her dad,
“A monster’s in my room and cries.
It’s cute and has the kindest eyes.”

Artificial Intelligence

A pretty, plastic flower won’t grow a seed
Though we might think it could with just a glance.
If we insist, indeed, it has a chance,
That only means that we have been deceived.
Computers read, but cannot understand.
They speak, but they cannot be entertained
And nothing new to them has been explained
Though everything and more they have at hand.

So why should anyone presume that we
Could be replaced by what is not aware
Though sentimentalized as if it were?
The flower in the basement cannot be
As real as those that bloom in fresher air
Whom bees enjoy and breezes calmly stir.

Differentiating Subjective and Objective

The only thing some say that I can know
Is what’s subjective, and I’m fine with that,
But when I shoot electrons aiming at
A double slit I trust I still can show
I fired something definite although
If I could tell which slit each one went through
I’d change the way they must have done that, too,
Implying dumb reality must go.

Hey! I don’t mind. The world seems better when
The matter that I thought was dead depends
Upon some deeper Consciousness to be.
If that configuration’s better, then
It changes almost everything and sends
Me looking for those Eyes that look at me.

Eveningwocky

I based the following poem on Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky where the identical first and last stanzas tie together the nonsense words and nonsense quest and are themselves, more or less, as the reader chooses to read them, nonsense.

Eveningwocky

When evening scents the Mithal trees
To please the frickle nose of night,
With eager ease she wildeyed sees
The darkness through delight.

“Make haste and run away with me.
Your father feigntful wants us gone.
We’ll cross the Leewild Forest be
Away when dusk calls dawn.”

But she would not ride off with him
Though handly fair of husky form,
Though strongly slim, sweet Gildawim
Would not offend the norm.

“Ride now! The night is begging you.
The stilblink stars will shine till late.
And when we do, the Precids, too,
Will fantasize our fate.”

She hesitates behind the door
That firmly guards what’s in from harm
And on the floor the Shiftwindmor
Cries out in sly alarm:

“Beware the boy behind that man
Who calls you through that pretty face
Though pleasure can be wild….” She ran
And caught him through embrace.

When evening scents the Mithal trees
To please the frickle nose of night,
With eager ease she wildeyed sees
The darkness through delight.

Walking Through St. Paul’s Churchyard in Manhattan

The rain and wind attacked the stones
That marked where George and Sarah rest.
Somewhere their flesh and fragile bones
Decayed.  The gravestones did their best
To let us know who’s lying where,
But weather wore their faces bare.
These markers still have much to tell:
The chapel stood when towers fell.

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