When John Henry was a little tiny baby,
Eyes glued to the TV screen,
He picked up a pencil and a tossed-out receipt,
Saying “Get em’ hero with that sword, sword.
Get em’ with that sword.”

John Henry was a man just finished high.
Nearly two and a half dubs to his name.
He’d drawn with a fine hard pencil all day,
And never hired but done his best, ignored, ignored,
And never hired but done his best.

John Henry went out on the flooded web,
And he saw its procedural soulless depths.
The web was so full, and John Henry was so small,
He laid down his pencil and he cried, bored, bored,
He laid down his pencil and he cried.

John Henry said to his fans,
“Friends, you go and grant a pledge;
Bring my Patreon to a clamor please.
And I’ll beat that Dall-E down,” roared, roared,
“And I’ll beat that Dall-E down.”

The fans said to John Henry,
“I believe AI’s an endless stream.”
But John Henry said, “Friend, just you stand aside--
It’s nothing but my pencil catching wind,” soared, soared,
It’s nothing but my pencil catching wind,”

John Henry said to his fans,
“A man is nothing but a man,
But before I let your neural net beat me down,
I’d die with a pencil in my hand, Lord, Lord,
I’d die with a pencil in my hand.”

The company that invented that algorithm,
They figured it was mighty high and fine,
But John Henry shaped the bodies and form,
While the PC, mismatched hands and eyes, record, record,
While the PC, mismatched hands and eyes.

John Henry imagined a synthesis,
Dall-E reproduced the mean.
John Henry beat that program down,
But he penciled his poor card to nil, reward, reward
He penciled his poor card to nil.

Well, they proclaim John Henry around the web,
And print his art on demand.
Now every shirt or mug; embellished with his sweat,
Says “There’s a cent my hard-pencil man, afford, afford,
There’s a cent my hard-pencil man.”

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/po.....897/john-henry