Balm of Gilead (The Afflicted Souls Café, Part III)
We listened to the Cloud
And knew
Not what to do
Its voice high and low
As it shifted
And reshaped
Its rounded edges
Folding over
Yielding leopards
And Crickets!
No trumpet blaring
No thud of stone
Tablets dropping
The ephemera
Triumphing
And classifying
Chaos
Into phyla and
Dewey decimals
Our maps and taxonomies
Anemic and limp
Desiccated syllables
Feed the dialog-flowing
into the gaslighting
Of provisional data
Blessed be the lamp oil
Rubbed on the creaky joints
Of peace treaties devised
By ChatGPT3a
May this balm lead us to Gilead
Unreproached and unscathed
Pina Piccolo, 22 January 2023