Poetry is an enigma to me. I wouldn’t know good poetry if my life depended on it and even the bad poetry that I sometimes see doesn’t sound so bad. Anything that confuses me like that makes it impossible for me to take it too seriously. After a recent Bad Poetry Post, I received a few e-mails with samples from some of my readers. I assume they sent them because they thought they were bad, I don’t really know, so you figure it out. I think the first one was sent to me because I’m from Maine and someone thought I might be interested in Moose poetry. Good luck with that one. Here it is . . .
A moose is like a bull on stilts With a silly kind of head. And if one of them sat on you You’d probably be dead.
Do you really think that’s bad poetry? It seems okay to me but nothing special. It’s a little bit of truth with a little bit of silliness. Here’s the next one which I really don’t understand about a Toad. It’s a little weird but kind of funny. It seems more like a limerick than poetry but when you get right down to it there isn’t much of a difference.
The story that is told By a severely flattened toad, Is of evidential failure In attempts to cross the road.
This next poem hits home for me primarily due to my advanced age and secondly because it brings back memories of my favorite grandmother who passed away a very long time ago. See what you think.
💖
Of love and marriage who can say, which way these things can go. A loving wife, a shrieking hag, no one will ever know.
The years of youth have come and gone, with memories good and bad. The happiness of family, the love of mom and dad.
The years should teach you something, or so we’re always told. Remain yourself no matter what, and mellow when your old.
Your life is filled with happiness, and sorrows big and small, But not until your old and gray, will you understand it all.
It is a shame that through the years, this knowledge lies unused. Erring and blundering again and again, with help and advice refused.
So, think about the elder ones, grandmothers, grandfathers and such, Who’ve experienced life’s many problems, and could help you oh so much.
Their days are few in number, and once their gone it’s sad. Accept their help and listen close, to the experiences that they’ve had.
And when they’ve gone, you’ll think of them the way they used to be. The memories are all you have, but that’s enough you see.
Today we’ll be introduced to what might be called something less than a romantic love poem. For those of you out there who worship at the steps of classical poetry, I apologize. I like my poetry a little more down to earth and accented with a bit of humor, be it erotic or rude, you decide. This was written some years ago, but it took a long time for me to actually decide to blog it. Anyone who knows me from that time will understand the fun of it, I hope.
As you may have guessed, I’ve been around a while and my memories go back many years. I survived the 60’s and 70’s with only minor damage and tried desperately to forget everything about the 80’s and 90’s. The new millennium was a big letdown, and it still remains just that. This little ditty was written in 1978 or there abouts. I was smoking a lot of Weed in those days so I’m not entirely sure about the exact date. Take a trip back with me.
❤THE GENERATION GAP❤ Your Dis’n me, I’m Dis’n you, It’s all just Greek to me. It’s wicked hot, she’s wicked cool, I’m wicked confused you see.
I thought our slang from years ago was a cool and groovy thing. We’d rap all night about far-out stuff and what the future might bring.
Peace Man! Protest marches, and on into the night. We’d smoke some weed and drink some beer, it’s what made everything alright.
Stop the war! Kent State Revenge, was what we thought was cool. Pass the beer, we can crash over here, so, we’re a little late for school.
To mix and match the old and new really must be done. To help prepare for whatever new and the nonsense that’s sure to come.
As my contribution to the current culture, I feel a real responsibility to donate something to the cause. Since I’m not a poet, I have the right to have some fun with poetry in general. I’ve never really had an appreciation of poetry and all of the flowery and descriptive emotions that are thrown around so freely. Since I’ve never heard most of those pretty phrases used in normal conversation, they don’t feel real and meaningful to me. I like my poetry to be more down to earth without all the BS. Here’s another beauty for you . . .
❤OLDIES❤
Be Bop A Lula, She’s my baby, I’ve loved those lyrics for years.
In the backseat, we hummed right along in between all of the beers.
I stroked and stroked her beautiful hair as the Coasters sang “Charlie Brown”.
Off with our clothes and tickled her toes as we turned our frowns upside down.
Those oldies had a wonderful rhythm that made our hips get the beat.
A kiss on the neck, a breast in my hand, and a cop with a flashlight….
Shit! It’s the heat.
It’s certainly no Robert Frost piece of work but that’s okay by me. He wouldn’t like my work almost as much as I don’t like his. I wrote this little ditty when I was in the ninth grade and Sue didn’t appreciate it either.
For many years after moving to New England, I spent a great deal of time in dozens of local cemeteries in southern Maine, checking out epithets, and anything else interesting that I could find. There was a time when I would stretch T-shirts over old tombstones and do rubbings of family names and places which I then sold in a local gift shop. Business became so brisk I was able to take requests from certain families to memorialize their long dead relatives. It was a little weird at times but very interesting. I also got to meet a few of the local law enforcement officers who repeatedly stopped to check me out. The epithets were remarkable since most of the early deaths were colonists from England, the home of the limerick. What follows are not the ones I discovered back then but discoveries made by other morbid folks who were also fascinated by them. Here are a few priceless ones I think you might enjoy.
Sacred to the memory of Anthony Drake,
Who died for peace and quietness’ sake.
His wife was constantly scolding and scoffin’,
So, he sought for repose in a twelve-dollar coffin.
As I stated on so many occasions, I am a rabid science-fiction fan. I’ve been reading science fiction material since I was a kid when I found a copy of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in a box of trash near a neighbor’s home. While admittedly there’s a lot of crap out there calling itself science-fiction, the classics remain the classics. Two days ago, I started reading the Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov again. As a young man I read it the first time but to understand it at that age was difficult. I’ve read the entire series three times since and every time I find more things I missed. As I began to read it again my thoughts came back to Isaac Asimov himself and the fact that he was not only an incredible writer but also wrote many outrageous and bawdy limericks. I thought I pass a few of those along to you today because he really knew how to craft limericks. Here are a few . . .
Here’s a well-known fact, I’m not a poet. I know a few people who have that skill and like it or not it is a rarity. I’ve tried over the years to read almost all of the more famous of the poets from this country and it leaves me uninterested and unmoved. I write a lot but when it comes to poetry my mind slides right into confusion. All of my poems (and there are a few) tend to be rude, abrasive, and at times erotic and funny. I’ve never been able to wrap my head around serious poetry because I just don’t have it in me. That being said, today I’ll offer up a sample of poetry and you can judge for yourself just how good it is. Let’s get started . . .
“Let me ask you one question,
Is your money that good?
Will it buy you forgiveness?
Do you think that it could?
I think you will find,
When your death takes its toll,
All the money you made
will never buy back your soul.”
That little bit of poetry was written by an often-criticized poet, Bob Dylan, in 1963, from his song, Masters of War. As with most of his musical lyrics, they’re still as good today as they were then. I’ll pass on one more small piece of wisdom with one of his quotes, ” Money doesn’t talk, it swears.”
Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963) was an American poet. His work was initially published in England before it was published in the United States. He was well known for his realistic depictions of rural life in New England. He was honored frequently during his lifetime and is the only poet to receive four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry.
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