Monday, August 22, 2011

Musings of my Broken Heart aka Crappy Poetry

Ahhhh…. Remember those emotionally charged teen years? When love was true but you were blue and you found yourself waxing poetic over your indifferent and worthless pimply-faced high school crush?

But after a few years, thankfully, you grew up. Your hormones settled. Your ass and thighs expanded. But best of all, you quit writing crappy poetry. Unfortunately, if you were like me, and brave enough to enter the world of trying to teach a new crop of high school kids how to appreciate real literature, you were, once again, subject to the mind-numbing torture of reading crappy poetry.

You’d be sitting at your desk, grading term papers and minding your own business, when a sniffling doe-eyed sophomore would sidle up to you while clutching a tear stained wad of paper in her hand. 

“Ms. Jones,” she’d say, “I’m entering my poem in an online contest and I could win one-thousand dollars. Would you read it and tell me if it’s any good?”

Oh, Dear God, no! 

But you smile and feign interest and take the paper from her outstretched hand.  The poem would read something like this:

I loved you once
Now you’re gone
I don’t know how I
Can carry on

You promised me
We’d never part
Then you left
And broke my heart

At that moment, you realize that if poetry had a scent, this one would smell like vomit.  But you smile again and tell her it’s sweet. You don’t tell her the truth because it would crush her already fragile heart.  She skips back to her desk and grabs another piece of paper. To her, your admission that the poem is sweet is all the validation she needs that she is going to be the next teenaged Shakespeare.

Tell me, Ms. Jones, by refusing to tell this child the truth, what have you done? The next thing you know, she’s penned a whole book-full of crap, titled, “Musings of my Broken Heart.” Thanks to Amazon self-publishing, she can upload her spewing vomit and charge .99 cents to any hapless soul who accidentally downloads it.

Unfortunately, she will further spiral into self-loathing depression when only two people buy it. Who are those two people, you ask? Her mother, of course, and you. Yes, Ms. Jones, you created this monster, now you must carry on the charade and purchase her poetry.

This all could have been avoided had you told her the truth, or at least suggested an improvement, such as editing the last two lines.

You promised me
We’d never part
Excuse me ‘cause
I need to fart

Isn’t that revised poem much better?

Will she change it? Probably not. But at least you are not to be held responsible for her delusions of poetic genius. 

Now I ask you fellow bards and sages to come up with a crappy poem of your own and leave it in the comments along with your email. At the end of one week (or two or three, depending on how may crappy poems I can collect), I will pick the crappiest of the vomit heap as the winner and you will win a free download of either Romance Novel or The Vampire Handbook plus an e-certificate deeming you the King or Queen of Poetic Mediocrity.  How’s that for reaping the rewards of your literary genius?

** I suppose I should say the poem can't be too offensive. Although, if you've read some of my writing, you'd know it's pretty hard to be offensive around me. Still, if y'all turn in some totally sick f**ked up poems, I may just have to call the cops or, at the very least, disqualify your psycho poetry. For example, no doing nasty stuff with babies. We can't all be Hugh Hefner.   

24 comments:

  1. *rubs hands together and opens the crap vault*

    This is vintage Saranna. 1995. Oh yeah. *ahem*

    In the endlessness of unbroken silence
    A long suffering heart bleeds into eternal
    darkness

    The death shroud of hope is bejeweled with pride
    While everything else slips away unnoticed

    Ensconsed by the fading light of a once coveted
    dream
    A soul withers with despair


    With each tear that slips down the alabaster
    cheek
    Is the answer to another tattered daydream


    And with each broken sob
    Comes another memory, best forgotten.


    Yeah, suck that Emos! LOL.

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  2. Oh Henry of 3rd period Biology,
    You dissected that pig just right.
    And if you don't ask me to the prom,
    I'll hang myself tonight!

    No one can love you like I do,
    Because if she does, I'll gut her.
    My love for you overflows onto my cheeks,
    like a cup filled with hot, love butter.

    Oh Henry of 3rd period Biology,
    I need you like a rose needs light.
    And if you don't ask me to the prom,
    I'll hang myself tonight!


    I think I threw up in my mouth a little.

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  3. A couple from my, ahem, formative years:

    My blood may look red,
    or sometimes look blue.
    My eyes they look brown,
    the colour of poo.

    Roses are white,
    and lilies are, too.
    My cock-ring's too tight
    and my thing's turning blue.

    Teacher don't be mad, for
    this is not a ruse;
    Assign a passing grade, or
    I'll tell about the booze.

    Flighty queen of campus, Mary
    too cool for the likes of I;
    I'd point out now your crotch stain'd cherry
    if I could but catch your eye.

    A vandal, a Quaker, a covert bong maker,
    at work in the art room 'til late,
    thinking about the bust of Ms. Baker;
    too bad she's gay, that's fate.

    Our pizza's topped with a special cheese
    that always fails to please;
    it seems to melt around eighty degrees-
    could cold pizza spread disease?

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  4. Saranna, is your poetry crap? I don't know. Let me grab a thesaurus first. LOL!

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  5. Rex, I think I threw up a little, too. 'Hot love butter' - Eeeew!

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  6. George, remind me to never eat pizza at your house!

    'Cock ring's too tight' - Bwahaha!!!

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  7. Alrighty, here's one o' mine. It's not part of the contest. Actually, it's song lyrics I wrote for someone like Gretchen Wilson or some other pissed off female country singer.

    I swiped your straw ‘cross my buttcrack
    Down at the bar Friday night
    You split my hose
    Then broke my nose
    But I think I still won the fight

    Yeah, I swiped your straw ‘cross my buttcrack
    You might have kicked my ass
    But next time you’re thinkin’
    That you should be drinkin’
    Honey, drink from the glass

    I swiped your straw ‘cross my buttcrack
    Just ‘cause you swiped my man
    Then you thought of fightin’
    ‘Cause I don’t like wipin’ when I go to the can

    I swiped your straw ‘cross my buttcrack
    Lime goes with salt, not shit
    You thought you’d steal my man – big deal
    I hope he likes tastin’ your spit
    ‘Cause I swiped your straw ‘cross my buttcrack

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  8. (OK, if we’re sharing humiliating past works, this is a genuine prose-poem that I wrote when I was sixteen and later titled “An exceedingly CRAP! poem that I’m ashamed of ever writing.” So, I figure it fits the bill!)

    You always had that sweet air of innocence
    But so many girls have passed through your arms
    That my troubled mind could not decide if what I saw was true.

    And now my heart leaps with happiness.
    For it has come to my ears, that you,
    Sweet breaker of my hopes,
    Are still unknown to woman.

    Whether from choice, or lack of opportunity I cannot tell
    But all this knowledge does
    Is lift from me my fears.

    For had each girl lain in your arms at night
    My heart would still ache for yours
    And my love would still be true.

    And I will wait, however long it takes
    Till you are mine, and I am yours.
    If it takes me the rest of this life
    And all of the next.
    When you take me in your arms
    It will not be a minute too late.
    For it will feel so right, that time will be nothing,
    And love will be eternity.

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  9. PJ, that was, of course, a reference to the largely inedible alleged pizza served in high school, which - in my day, at least - consisted of:

    1. A lower layer made of something more like cardboard than "crust";
    2. An upper layer made of something like parrafin;
    3. An overly sweet hint of marinara sauce in between the two.

    The "pizza" was inevitably served at room temperature, yet the upper layer was always stretchy and runny. Hence the poem about it.

    Nowadays I get pizza from a little family-owned Italian restaurant not too far away, and it's delish, with actual recognizable ingredients and everything. :)

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  10. Come on, Zela! I just ate lunch. Yikes! What a pile of vomit. Bravo!

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  11. George, you ate those pizzas, too? My favorite were the barfy burgers. Not quite sure what was in-between those two pieces of cardboard they passed off as a bun, but it certainly wasn't meat.

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  12. This is not nearly as catchy as swiping a straw across a buttcrack, but it nonetheless sits well within the realm of crap.

    Ah, my love, my heart
    I see you from across the room
    Alas, you look at me
    And sweep my up like a broom

    With one sizzling look
    No words are needed
    To know you're my forever
    No longer will my heart bleeded

    You take my hand
    You walk me to class
    I give cheers to you
    as I lift my glass

    Then you open your mouth
    My heart sinks like stone
    At your unintelligible words
    And that oh so annoying tone

    I turn away from you now
    All filled up with strife
    And there...across the room
    Stands the love of my life

    Ah, my sweet, my heart
    I go to him now
    Alas, he looks at me
    I love him, and how

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  13. This is undated, but circa spring of 1997, to judge from the notebook it's scrawled half-legibly in. Yes, I hated my job at the time, why do you ask? :)

    ---

    Weary and tired
    my thoughts uninspired
    my mind turns down randomness way

    Like a volcano erupting
    my psyche's disrupting
    mem'ries of another long day

    I cannot recall
    what I did, at all
    to cause me to feel this way

    I fear that I've been wrong
    about life, all along
    it's nothing but a play

    You work hard at your part
    'til at long last you depart,
    yet still I go on my way

    My conscience is not
    a problem, for I've got
    a lifetime left to repay

    But you my friend
    may go 'round the bend
    unless you should start, today

    For pain lasts forever,
    or do you not remember
    the old, the weak, and the grey?

    ----

    It makes no more sense fourteen years later than it did back then, I'm afraid. Well, that's crappy poetry, I guess...

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  14. George, this poem doesn't make me want to vomit. Hang myself, maybe.

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  15. "No longer will my heart bleeded"

    Cindy, I love how you defy the rules of grammar just to make the poem rhyme. Crapola alert!

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  16. Please don't hang yourself; the world needs more were-gerbil literature.

    And to think I'd go from that to out-ranking Twilight on Amazon in a decade in a half... :)

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  17. Why, thank you, George. You're outranking Twilight? I need to check it out.

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  18. I'm outranking Twilight for the tag "train wreck". But, hey, I'll take my victories where I can. :D

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  19. I had to read the bleeded line like three times. Well done!

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  20. Okay, I made one up that I think is has a much more modern theme (judging by newspaper stories). And where the heck were these teachers when I was a kid?


    Oh, Ms. Chekovsky,
    You taught Latin like a hoss.
    I appreciate you inviting me over,
    to watch reruns of "Who's the Boss?"

    The lasagna was really awesome,
    And naked twister was out of sight.
    But it's really hard to play doctor,
    when you turn off all the lights.

    So, thanks Ms. Chekovsky,
    and Ceasar thanks you too.
    I'm not sure why you call it that,
    but it's better than Mr. Poo.


    This sucks. Why are mine so twisted? I feel broken. :(

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  21. Rex, my husband also wants to know where those teachers were when he was a randy teen.

    Hail Caesar! Bwahaha!

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  22. From Ray Saintonge, who is unable to post here. Is Blogger conspiring against him? After you read his poem, you may wonder...

    All the world's a bed,
    And all the men and women merely porn stars;
    They have their exits and their entrances;
    ...And one man in his time plays many parts,
    His stages being seven acts. At first the beggar,
    Looking for attention from his target's arms;
    Then the whining school-boy, with liquored breath
    And fingers stuck with jam, creeping like snail
    On her unwilling skin. And then the victor,
    Slob'ring like a mastiff, with a woeful ballad
    Upon his mistress' mound. Then a soldier,
    Full of strange grunts, and bearded with his drool,
    Erect in honour, sudden with missing thrusts,
    Seeking the sacred aperture
    Into the cannon's mouth. And then he enters
    The fair round belly with good comfort lin'd,
    With eyes wide shut in stupid grin surround,
    Proclaiming love and babbling like a fool;
    Thus dribbles in his squirt. The sixth age shifts
    Into exhaustion and diminished pride,
    His weight too great for his unsated bride;
    His youthful throes, misplaced in a world too wide
    For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
    Turning again toward childish whines, farts
    And snorings in his sound. Last scene of all,
    That ends this strange eventful history,
    Is second childishness and fallen from his prize;
    Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, he falls asleep.

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  23. Ha, ha, thanks Alan! Wow, swearing and all. My poor maidenly sensibilities.

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  24. Okay, waiting on a few more poems. I will announce the winner Sunday. Thanks so much everyone who's entered so far!

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