Ballads

He got out his guitar after dinner and played some beautiful Spanish ballads for us.

No salutations without miracles, and no ballads without valour.

Tom has already sung three ballads tonight.

Tom likes to listen to old murder ballads while sculpting butter.

You look more like you're into romantic ballads.

It is not so easy to write ballads descriptive of the bushland of Australia as on light consideration would appear.

Since the return of terrorism, ballads have become dangerous!

She writes ballads about life and love.

After a dinner of 4 fresh green figs, some refrigerated pickled fig pieces, and microwaved spaghetti Alfredo, eaten on the balcony under a blue sky, I sipped my iced lime water whilst watching the still street below and the big tall conifer beyond. I've been talking to Michael the Dane-French ufologist in recent days about lots of things: My university was like a vacation of smart people, Zen gardens, stone libraries, and so forth. It's different from the suburbia here. We wondered if people staring addictively for hours on their smartphone would ruin their "mind's eye"—inhibiting one's own imagination. He noticed that their device distraction did ruin social gatherings in cafés. I just people-watch and meditate in the café: It reminds me of Arthur the Japanese-American software engineer in my software workplace in Japan; he could just sit on a counter whilst just staring at a wall for a long time. Lately, I've been asking Artificial Intelligence to write ballads and travelogues in Elizabethan English and nostalgic Tagalog. I pick blackberries on the walking way to Tim Hortons café: "¡Moras!" (Blackberries!), I often exclaim in Spanish. An Ecuadorian friend has "Mora" as his surname. He is partly Amerindian, maybe Incan. Today is the 3rd of August of 2025, here on Lulu Island. I went to Kin's Farm Market to buy a bag of 4 lemons, not limes, this time.

It's Lulu Island, 3 August 2025. After supper—green figs tender with sunlight, sweet vinegar from yesterday’s pickled jar, and reheated Alfredo—I sat on the balcony and watched the conifer. Stillness below, a street without cars, without haste. My lime water, iced, caught the light. Michael, the Franco-Danish ufologist, has been in my conversations lately. We speak of inner things: the trance of smart devices, the mind’s eye dwindling. He says cafés aren’t cafés anymore. People forget how to look, how to linger. I tell him of Arthur in Japan—how he'd stare into blank walls like a monk gazing at emptiness. Lately I ask machines to speak like poets, and they do. They mimic Elizabethan verses and the old wistful lilt of Tagalog ballads. I pick blackberries along the path to Tim Hortons. "¡Moras!" I shout like a child. My friend Mora, whose blood flows with Andes mist, would smile. Today, I bought lemons. I meant limes, but lemons are all right. / blackberry morning— / a fig's ghost on my fingers / and the street still sleeps