Saturday, January 14
elk|rabbits|deer|mice
throughout the ancient moonlight the owls will move
on my lawn
like small gods
a simple engine for expressing poetic variation
The short poem above is actually the output of a routine to express variation within a block of text. Given a block of text where sets of alternative words (or strings in general) are marked off within curly brackets and separated by pipes, it randomly selects among the alternatives. Thus:
the {green|red} light
spoke to {him|her|them}
of a {tragic|distant|idyllic} {past|future}
Might become:
the red light
spoke to her
of a tragic past
Even without nested alternatives, conditionals, or any kind of branching, this is surprisingly flexible. You can take a look at the source, if you like, or reload this entry to get a new variation.
May 10, 2016 edit: Since this site is now generated statically, the poem above will only change when it's republished.