Poetry so bad your eyes will water

AKA Adolecent Poetry

You know sometimes when you see a really bad film, it is SO bad it goes full circle and becomes enjoyable? Well poetry doesn't work that way. Bad poems stay bad - no amount of time will change that. What will change however is one's own humility and perception of themselves as earnest, over sensitive muppets who sit around in black writing unrequited love sonnets. Oops! I said too much.

(Disclaimer: Adolecent poetry doesn't just refer to your teen years. I wrote plenty of adolecent poetry right into my early 20s. It could be argued that i'm still writing it .

WARNING: Read at your own risk


Confessions of an ex-caffeine addict

Over a cup of coffee
I learned I was comfortably numb
I absorbed your witticisms
As eagerly as you did my cigarette smoke
And in that brief space in time
My life changed
And I became another

Unafraid to leap and soar
Beautiful and fearless rushing
Forward to embrace
Life and love

But alas…
that cup has gone sour
I strangled on you words
Of hatred and indifference
I crashed against your
Feelings of anguish and
despair

No longer able to leap and soar
Crippled as I am
by this Pain In my heart
I fear life
And crouch in this corner

And I swear to myself
Next time
I’ll switch to decaf






[edit on 8-6-2006 by nikelbee]

Here is another winner - however with this one a friend and I tried to intentionally come up with the worst poem we could. It actually turned out alright

(Wait, on further reread... no it didn't)


20,000 leagues under your sheets
(Experimental poetry created by combining the influences of popular music, sea shanties and 2 bottles of cheap red wine)


My loins burn with the thought of you.
Arched over like
A Bridge over Troubled Water

I dive deep down into your murky depths
Discovering the buried treasure
Circling your cove of pleasure

I pause…
but only for a moment
X marks your g-spot and I dig it.

Slowly, you resurface sea-wrapped in seaweed
Your heaving bosom rising and falling

Like the morning tide
Like dolphins at play
Like ocean spray

Am I dreaming, or is this fantasy?
Tell me, enchantress, have you Bewitched
Bothered and Bewildered me?

Sweet Lorelei, Siren to the Sensuous
Who guides lost sailors into your warm welcoming port
Creature of the sea
You make me break out
In a cold James Brown sweat

And I lust
And I thrust
And I whisper your name like a sea breeze

My mama has a little dog
She looks just like a sheep
And mama holds her like a babe
When she goes to sleep
She seems to be a fragile thing
But the opposite is true
She’s scrappy, sure enough
And quite determined, too



How's that for dumb?!?!

Oughta call it Scrappy Too or Scrappy Poo (considering how things turned out to be with that little dog--sitting on my lap right now)

But I luff her.

I won't even tell you how old I was when I penned that one....

I read it again.

James Brown sweat!?!?!?!




OMG



oops

Tint the world just a little more chrome
I need more sunlight sparkles at home
My nights should shimmer, the days must shine
Look now, a wee little fish is hitting my line
If he hooks on, I'll surely toss him back
Let him grow until he's at least a snack




[edit on 6/8/2006 by queenannie38]

James Brown Sweat... I know - someone bring me my robe. Thanks for joining in QA. Just when I was starting to think it wasn't such a hot idea...

'Tint the world just a little more chrome' - should be a bumber sticker or a song by Cliff Richard.

This is kinda fun - I was expecting more ppl to contribute their own bad poems - but maybe they are too busy cringing in the corner from reading ours. Do you think we should rate the badness? 1 being respecfully bad - 5 being so bad it hurts.

Here is my next entry - this one is trying to achieve a self-righteous tone that should not be attempted without the help of a supervising adult. I think it was my first year of Uni and it shows. As for style (?) I have no idea what I was trying to acheive here.


Ode to a Tree

I hate blank paper
It makes me so nervous
I write better on a dirty wrinkled sheet

That way, less is expected
If I happen to screw up…
It’s trashed already

No pressure

If I crunch up a clean sheet
I have an innocent tree’s blood
On my conscience

It pisses off the environmentalists
they have no humor
Must be all that recycling
Wears them out

They won’t be happy
Until I confess

Yes, I killed an innocent tree

But they are my friends too (the trees)

Believe it or not…
I was writing a poem
Entitled, “How to save the world”

But you know art
You must sweat and toil and bleed
That is why after this line
I’m crunching it up
That makes 29

I was rummaging through old files I wrote as a teenager and I found a slew of the Worst Poetry Ever Written, for instance:

In the Multitude I Sit
Yet Alone and Distant
A Non Conformist
Aloof and Different

Note the cunning way that I capitalised certain words, as if to emphasise just how Different I was. I was Aloof and a Non Conformist. I seem to remember writing second and third stanzas but unfortunately they seem to have been lost in the midsts of time. Maybe if I look through old papers I'll find them somewhere.

There are other similar works of appalling poetry lurking around in my PC and maybe I'll share them with you all when I'm less traumatised.

Kedfr thanks for sharing.

Wow - I am speechless (for once). Please send more.



[edit on 9-6-2006 by nikelbee]

I think kedfr may have us beat, Nik!

I am greatly entertained by your offerings. I think they’re so bad they’re good!

I chuckle softly all the way through, but at the end, I’m rewarded by a hilarious punch-line
That really makes them well worth several reads!

Your sense of humor is exquisite!

But please, kedfr, I’m with Nik—more, more, encore!

I forgot to add, kedfr—you might surely be the antithesis of ee cummings—with your selective capitalization compared to his none!

Nik:

the judges cards:

Confessions: 4
20,000 leagues: 5.5 (yeah, that's right, my eyes are running like I'm peeling onions!)
Ode: 4.5

kedfr:

the judges card:

3.25

I'd have give you higher, but I can't have more score than lines! Don't be so Aloof!

Okay I think I've found one worse than the above.

Want to know something else that makes it officially the worst poem ever written? I put it on a Valentine's Card. On a card that had a duck on the front.

That's right. A valentine's card with a duck on the front with quite possibly the worst 'love' poem ever conceived, with quite astonishingly bad sub-Keatsian 'poesy'. What was I thinking?

Sigh. Well anyway, here goes...

Silent Ghost

Only in fields of Fancy dost thou roam
A soundless blur, amidst echoing hope,
The silent beauty stands trapped in memory
Away from the silent echos of my beating heart.

Thy beauty rings pure as a tuning fork,
Resonating the freshness of the smile
That cruel nature has painted upon you,
Masking sweet Melancholy's distant call.

Thy Green flames of Spring ever sleep dormant
Forbidden to melt Winter's accursed touch:
Thy condemn me to an casket of ice
Doomed to haunt the frozen river of despair.

Okay here is another bad one. Note The Capitalisation Again.

The Wind

Tonight, the Wind roars Its final breath
O'er the rock and rivers It failed to rule
O'er oceans following commands to fight
And o'er Its ally and heir of darkness.

Oh my kedfr, this is perfect!

Thy condemn me to an casket of ice
Doomed to haunt the frozen river of despair.

You totally get a 5 from me for this poem and another 5 points for this line, 'Thy beauty rings pure as a tuning fork'.

And the title - Silent Ghost! Did you really send this on a duck card? I am crying onion tears of laughter/pain.

Queenannie

Your first poem with the doggie gets a 3.0 from me (mainly cause the cute little thing is sitting on your lap and let's not mess with pets).

Your second petless poem gets a hearty 4.0 from me. Originally I gave it 3.75, but that extra .25 is from the chrome line which is too priceless to go to waste.

Tint the world just a little more chrome
I need more sunlight sparkles at home

Kedfr is doing remarkably well even with his meager lines. He manged to rack up 10 points in just one poem.

Watch this space for more bad poetry.

How about really bad song lyrics, ive got piles and piles from when i thought i might have been the next ozzy. Heres one to whet your appetites.

THE STAND.

Congregating dreamers
Prophets of the year
Regulated schemers
Filling you with fear.

Should you meet a fellow with less than yourself
Take what he offers and put it on the shelf.

Prophets of the year
With nothing left to lose
Congregating dreamers
And the schemers who will choose.

Should you pass a leper begging in the street
Pay him with some morsels from your hands and feet.

Regulated schemers
Opening the purse
Congregated dreamers
Prophets drive the hearse

Should you see a smoking gun in the leaders hand
Pass him by and you will die, its time to make a stand.


Im searching through piles of this stuff as i write. Believe me it gets worse, i can actually remember thinking how good some of this was, ah youth.

Mojo

Welcome to Bad Poetry Anonymous. I like your lyrics. It was a difficult job to (exuse the pun) write this off as youthful writing. You have a certain flair and style that comes across despite some of the choice of words. I will at the moment hold back on rating your 'badness' until I see more of your offerings.

I did enjoy this couplet very much:

Should you meet a fellow with less than yourself
Take what he offers and put it on the shelf.

Your lines had the uncanny ability to stop me from continuing onto the next stanza to ask myself... What shelf? Where did the shelf come from? What is being put on the shelf? Is it bigger than a breadbox? What if the fellow offering offered a stale piece of bread, would that go on the shelf? So many questions...

I also liked these lines:

Congregated dreamers
Prophets drive the hearse

You have a talent for grabbing your reader out of dreamy-land and throwing a bucket of cold water reality at them in the form of unique description.

I spent a good 5 minutes pondering on what prophets might look like driving a hearse.

Thanks for being brave - great stuff.

[edit on 14-6-2006 by nikelbee]

To anyone who sent me a U2 regarding the inability to post, the MODS have nicely moved it here so you can post your bad poems to your heart's delight.

I really like this idea, nikelbee, so I thought I'd throw in one myself. Purple Poetry at it's most decadent...
---------------------------

Anihuman

Raise the index finger of your right hand
and slowly snake it to your face.
As it nears your mouth, then make a toothy sneer
and touch your sharply gleaming incisor.

That lovely tooth,
made to tear and rend,
puncturing jugulars of furry throats.
Then ask yourself 'what is a human?'

Standing in the verdant bower...
hiding, bipedal, a naked ape,
his synapses just a'snapping,
cunning and lying in wait...

For the witless and the hapless.

Hey Nickelbee, guess what i wanted to be when i was fifteen.

Sweet sweet metal
Music to my ears
Sweet sweet metal
Its all i wanna hear
Oh its so sweet
Its loud and clear
Its sweet metal
Music to my ears

Its friday night, get drunk allright
dont need to sleep, dont need to fight,
Coz when the band starts playin
we'll bang our heads,

Coz that metals loud
That metals good
That metal sounds
Like metal should

Bangin into the night headbangin
Makes me feel allright headbangin
Im a headbanger
Proud as i can be
Im a headbanger
Dont mess with me headbangin

You know, even though were all anonymous here i'm still embarrassed to own up to this one. What was i thinking. And just quietly this is better than some others that i intend to set fire to tonight. this better get me a score at least for the embarassment