Tough Bikers, Artificial Intelligence and Shakespeare - Pudding & Poetry Night

Some of the Phoenix Riders

I’m in a motorcycle gang. Yes really, I am. We are the Phoenix Riders. We even have the t-shirts to prove it. If you now have the movie “Wild Hogs“ in mind, you are probably not too far off. Well, except for the brand of motorbike we ride. We are a group of great friends all somewhere beyond the 40 year age median and just love to ride and hang out together. 

And when we don’t ride (it’s winter here) there are excellent social gatherings organized. Just like yesterday evening. A Pudding & Poetry evening. Great people, great food and even greater poems. The people themselves wrote a lot of them. 

One of my contributions was an AI generated sonnet. This was the brief:

"Write a sonnet about a motorcycle club called the Phoenix Riders in Kerikeri New Zealand in the style of William Shakespeare"

This is the result:

AI Generated Shakespeare Sonnet

From Kerikeri's fair town they ride with pride
The Phoenix Riders, brave and bold and free
They scorn the law and live by their own code
They love their bikes, their mates, their liberty

 
They roar along the roads with flame and smoke
They make the earth to tremble with their sound
They laugh at danger, death is but a joke
They rise anew from ashes on the ground

But lo, what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun

She is the daughter of their rival gang
The Dragon Lords, who hate them every one
What will become of this forbidden love?

Will they find peace or perish in the blood? 

Here is the literary work from Murray Williams

Our David Taylor organized this ride
For far too long we've been sitting inside
He cried "There are roads we must travel
And just for once we will avoid all the gravel"
"To Tutukaka" he said "that's our destination"
so off we all went without hesitation.

Through forest and across plain we all flew
Yvonne didn't even stay for the loo

Max was there with his shiny red Honda
The way he treats it
You'd think it's Jane Fonda

Mark was there giving his KTM hell
He really does ride it very very well
Though on one sharp bend, some nasty loose gravel
Almost caused him to completely unravel

I was there, too doing my best
Trying not to get left behind by the rest
when my light near fell out
Steve said what a shock
Cable ties and tape are your best friend
We will get you home in the end.

Keith was flying along, gobbling up the roads
Very happy this time he still had his cords
I hope he likes riding with us, this way
He's raced at Philips Island, back in the day

Marcel was there, too
sticking to the road like glue
It did though cause some tension
He should be at work, thus paying our pension

Yvonne was having a little trepidation
The third wheel was causing some vibration
"It's not unpleasant" she said with a grin
"but it starts in the bottom and comes out at my chin".

"Oakara" Steve said "We will get an ice cream "
And the beach there to be better believed, need to be seen
But if it was Hokey Pokey you craved
Your money ended up to be saved.

Now a great day was had
But this part's quite sad
For it's for Dave we all grieve
And it's hard to believe
Cause, though he thought he heard best
He waited alone - some place out West

And here the contribution from Keith Barnard

Following on from Linda’s reading of Ithaca, I would just say enjoy the journey.

I started this journey with a “Ride Forever” course.  I did not realise I would have an instructor also forever! (Reference to Steve our riding buddy and RideForever instructor)

Along with others in this group, I am slowly changing my bad riding habits acquired over 63 years.

Robert Louis Stevenson’s Requiem

Under the wide and starry sky

Dig the grave and let me lie

Glad did I live and gladly die,

And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:

Here he lies where he longed to be;

Home is the sailor, home from the sea,

And the hunter home from the hill.

                      Mount Vaea, Samoa