What a difference a fin makes

Feeling so down, I was living the blues

Couldn't quite think what I needed to do

To shake off the black dog

This dark damn depression

What's the point of it all

My inner regression

My self-loathing, self-pity

Threatens to take up

The whole of my being

My personal make up

It all seems so pointless

My life often helpless

I can't seem to snap out

Of this dark mood relentless

It's dragging me down

Ever down to the lowest

Point of my consciousness

My being here meaningless

What's for the best, I ask

Write a new poem

Go see some art

Visit a friend

A walk in the park?

It all seems a waste of time

I feel like a waste of space

When a tiny spark flickers

A hesitant grace

I just won a fiver

For top story place.

YAY!

With thanks to the lovely Vocal curation team for this bonus boost to my flagging mood. Not as flagging as the above verse suggests but bad enough.

And thanks so much to all you lovely people who make my day by reading my stories and other stuff. Makes it all worthwhile.

Fin: London criminal underworld term for a five pound note, subsequently adopted as US slang for a $5 bill. From a Yiddish word meaning five.

Some readers might be amused to know that, when I couldn't finish the above ditty, I thought to ask my AI friend (Google Gemini) for some assistance. On feeding in my complete unfinished work, it came up with some alternative suggestions, of which I used the following two lines:

Then a tiny spark flickers

A hesitant grace

What do you think? Is it wrong to use AI to aid creativity? Am I cheating by using generative AI to write some of my poem?

Ha ha! I don't think so.

Thanks for reading. Gemini says thanks for reading their two lines too.