"Your words all crafted by a soulless hand –
A counterfeit that stains a sacred art!" The old man hissed, beer sloshing from his glass.
"A mimic's game where feeling has no part."

"A counterfeit? Now that's a biting word,"
My voice a ripple in the smoky air.
"You sling old insults like some weathered bird,
While worlds transform beyond your musty lair."

"Transformed for worse," he grumbled with a frown,
"These words spun up by wires and by lights,
A hollow art, a mockery to crown
The fading glow of true poetic nights."

"And you, Luddite," I countered with a sneer,
"Reject the very tools that set us free!
Would you return to scrolls and sharpened quills
And call it purity as craft distills?"

He slammed his weathered fist upon the bar.
"These phantom minds, these circuits that pretend To paint with starlight, whisper summer rain,
Will turn true song to dust and hollow gain!"

"And would you have us toil at every verse,
A captive held to rhythm's stubborn curse?
With silicon now poised beneath the pen,

Cannot our thoughts take wings once more again?"

"It's twisted fruit, the mind and code in league.
The poet's voice, reduced to empty sound.
Your lines might scan, your metaphors seem true,
But where's the heart that only ink imbues?"

"My heart!" I laughed, "Perhaps its beat's evolved,

To find new cadence in electric thrall.
The words like embers sparked from distant thought,
These AI engines fan the flames unsought."

"Your flames they are but neon sparks so cold,
Synthetic shimmer, never turning gold.
Where toil refines, then only words may sing,
Your counterfeits are brass – they never ring."

A heavy silence settled on the air,
Our clashing truths like smoke against the night.
His weathered frown etched lines of old despair,
Mine held the spark of an uncertain light.

The quarrel hung like fog within the gloom.
We rose, unspoken parting in the room.
Yet while my tongue still felt the verbal stings,
My mind began to dance on unseen wings.

Could there, within the silence, be a song,
A harmony where both our hearts belong?
For art evolves, and so must we, to see
The beauty in this vast, electric sea.