Darby Lyons

What in the HELL?

an elderly man in a pink jacket is standing in a kitchen with his arms outstretched and shouting . Alt: Redd Foxx standing in a kitchen with his arms outstretched and shouting OH LAWD GEEZUS HELP ME PLS!

I had brunch with a former student today. Mid-conversation, she told me today's her 50th birthday.😳

So when thousands of women (and children) were being duplicated--including in non-consensual AI porn--it was no big deal. But it took "only a 15-sec clip" of these two famous white men to draw outrage and fear. Gotcha. Cool cool.

"These are the reluctant activists, the ones forced to take action because once you see this violence in real life and realize that it’s really truly happening right outside your door, there’s no other role to have, no matter who you voted for or what political party you belong to.”

Hi, Maine friends... I hope you fire spineless Susan. I also hope you replace her with Janet, not the Nazi tattoo/racist/misogynist reddit comments guy. Sigh.

HELLO I WAS A QUEER TEEN IN THE 1990s AND THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST SOCIAL TRANSITION NOW ARE INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST "LETTING" US BE (at the time, for me) GAY OR LESBIAN THEN.

They all rest on the belief that it's inherently better to be straight (then)/cis (now) and that's BS.

Master of the craft.

Writing is thinking.

Not a product, not content, not an inefficient task that impedes workflow.

Remove writing, remove thinking. Remove thinking, remove ...

An older man in a gray sweater and an older woman in a purple top sit, smiling, in a restaurant booth

My favorite Valentines.❤️
(aka Dad &Mom)

March 4th at Urban Artifact in Cincy: Featured poets Karen George, Donelle Dreese, Nancy Jentsch, & Taunja Thomson will read from their collaborative collection, Delight is a Field (Ashanti Arts). Come in! There’s an open mic! #PoetryatArtifact

OpenAI admits AI hallucinations are mathematically inevitable, not just engineering flaws In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limi...

"OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limits."

This isn't a dead canary in the coal mine, it's a miner. AI doesn't work.

www.computerworld.com/article/4059...

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This is awful.

I still don't understand why anyone gives a fuck what this a-hole thinks.

This is a poem I wrote in response to the events in Minneapolis. I'm honored that Stone Circle Review shared it.

Valentine's Day phone conversation with my mom:
Me: Did you and Dad give each other Valentines?
Mom: Yes, we did. And he gave me a grout cleaner.
Me & Mom: *simultaneously burst out laughing*
Mom: but it has a long handle, so it's really nice.
*more laughter*

That's 68 years of marriage, y'all 😍

The Shirt BY JANE KENYON The shirt touches his neck and smooths over his back. It slides down his sides. It even goes down below his belt-down into his pants. Lucky shirt.

Cremation It nearly cancels my fear of death, my dearest said, When I think of cremation. To rot in the earth Is a loathsome end, but to roar up in flame — besides, I am used to it, I have flamed with love or fury so often in my life, No wonder my body is tired, no wonder it is dying. We had a great joy of my body. Scatter the ashes. Robinson Jeffers

Bird-Understander By Craig Arnold Of many reasons I love you here is one the way you write me from the gate at the airport so I can tell you everything will be alright so you can tell me there is a bird trapped in the terminal all the people ignoring it because they do not know what to do with it except to leave it alone until it scares itself to death it makes you terribly terribly sad You wish you could take the bird outside and set it free or (failing that) call a bird-understander to come help the bird All you can do is notice the bird and feel for the bird and write to tell me how language feels impossibly useless but you are wrong You are a bird-understander better than I could ever be who make so many noises and call them song These are your own words your way of noticing and saying plainly of not turning away from hurt you have offered them to me I am only giving them back if only I could show you how very useless they are not

NOCTURNE WITH OVERDUE BOOKS by Amorak Huey One of us lies awake, the other sleeps, dreams, both, we've been at this for years, it's that kind of marriage. The king bed is new, what to do with so much space, the neighbors are new and so young they cannot hold still like the mylar balloon tied to the tire swing in their yard, so red and so shiny, forgive me. Our kids are still awake in rooms nearby, laughing at whatever the world's beaming into their earbuds. It's easy to picture: beauty in their faces, ghost-glow of handheld screens, they're alive in the future already but we will not be. I forgot to tell you, the library called again today. We're out of renewals. It's not a metaphor. I don't know where the books are. Maybe there's one under the bed. If this does not sound like a love poem you're reading it wrong.

Love Poem with Apologies for My Appearance By Ada Limón Sometimes, I think you get the worst of me. The much-loved loose forest-green sweatpants, the long bra-less days, hair knotted and uncivilized, a shadowed brow where the devilish thoughts do their hoofed dance on the brain. I'd like to say this means I love you, the stained white cotton T-shirt, the tears, pistachio shells, the mess of orange peels on my desk, but it's different than that. I move in this house with you, the way I move in my mind, unencumbered by beauty's cage. I do like I do in the tall grass, more animal-me than much else. I'm wrong, it is that I love you, but it's more that when you say it back, lights out, a cold wind through curtains, for maybe the first time in my life, I believe it.

💕A thread of favorite love poems.
Happy Valentine's Day 💕

Thanks for giving the context.

My friend, a gray haired lady wearing jeans and a gray sweater with pink flowers, stands behind two wooden tables covered in a display of framed tiny watercolors.

My friend has been making tiny watercolor paintings and decided to give a bunch away as Valentine gifts to the residents of my parents' retirement community apartment building. A fun afternoon chatting with them all as they picked out art to take home.😍

11 ot 12 year old me with our dog, Gypsy. She's a black miniature schnauzer with floppy ears and a red color. I'm kneeling with my hand on her. I have long blonde hair and am wearing jeans and a red shirt. There's a cassette tape recorder next to me. Photo circa 1972 or 73

I just cleaned out my junk drawer, which seems like an oxymoron, but boy, do I feel a sense of accomplishment! Plus, I found our AKC papers for the dog that joined our family in 1965 and was our beloved pup till her death in 1981.

"He had a Nazi tattoo, sure, but..." and "If one can get a Nazi tattoo innocently..." in a single paragraph is wild.

Ohio Republicans are destroying our state.

Today's poem:
"Catastrophe is Next to Godliness" by Franny Choi

Phew, this poem. It hits right in the center of my soul...

Today's poem is one from All These Ghosts, by Silas House. Small but mighty.

The chances of this passing the Senate (i.e., nuking legis. filibuster for it) are slim to none, they're pushing this more for the talking points to delegitimize their midterm loss. But this isn't just very bad policy. It's utterly impractical in the sense that it'd cause total unworkable chaos.

even if this is a good faith decision with no outside pressure, the timing isn’t great!