Welcome, O Reader, to the final entry in this spontaneous Bad Poetry Week Celebration. Spurred by Amanda Palmer‘s example at the start of the week, we’ve since gawked at horrifying lizard-themed word-butchery by Troy Lumber, a cringeworthy WWI song, and and ode by the Cheese Poet.

But lest we start to feel superior, in comparison to these truly eye-bleedingly bad examples, I grit my teeth, quashed my cowardice, and brought out my own notebook of half-assed college poetry. And folks — it’s awful. The only good thing I can say about my poetical attempts is that there are mercifully few of them. And the sonnet explaining how to write a sonnet is okay.

So, in the spirit of camaraderie that is the very essence of Bad Poetry Week, I present you the reason why I should never be allowed to write free-associative verse ever again. Warning: the following poem contains levels of ham-handed allusion and overly serious pretension that, if they were turned into food, would pretty much eliminate world hunger for at least a week.

Draft #2

by Olivia Waite

The hand of the Almighty Dog

two springs connected

in oscillating ecstasy

like jellied eels in springtime

snickering apoplectically

and the ever-loving nation falls to pieces.

Where will all the insanity end?

When will the myriad voices cease

their merciless whinging clamor

a ululate gaggle of aching throats

gone hoarse screaming in lecherous agony:

“come on up to my room

and I’ll work you over.”

It’s enough to make you want

to spit on the electric fence.

And the reading accumulates

and accumulates

and accumulates and accumulates

and … well you get the idea …

and then the mind begins

its wobbly revolution:

This is the way the poem ends

this is the way the poem ends

this is the way the poem ends

  as Johnny comes marching home again

hurrah

hurrah.

So last week was a rough one. I know we all were hoping this week would be better. But then news came that Amanda Palmer had written a poem about the captured Boston bomber — and not just any poem, but a really, truly, unbelievably terrible one. Vogon-worthy poetry. She’s now getting quite a bit of negative feedback for it. This is partly because there are a great many criticisms to be made about a lot of Amanda Palmer’s work, partly because there’s always a horde ready to criticize anything a woman puts into the public world, but mostly, in this specific case, because the poem is exceptionally bland and lazy. (You want to make art that humanizes mass murderers and terrorists? Wislawa Szymborska shows us how it’s done with “The Terrorist, He Watches” and the excellent “Hitler’s First Photograph.”)

What’s worse: Amanda Palmer’s terrible poem is not even terrible enough to be fun.

Over the years, I’ve become something of a connoisseur of bad poetry. The kind that will make your eyes twist and try to escape their sockets before you make them read the next line. And there’s an electricity you get from bad poetry that can be almost as refreshing as good poetry — something about bad poetry makes you realize that you’re not doing so bad in your own life after all, no matter what the nighttime voices tell you when you’re trying to sleep. So I’m declaring this week Bad Poetry Week — I’ll post a different terrible poem every day, culminating in some of my own embarrassing productions from diaries past.

Today’s terrible poem — be warned, this is not for the faint of heart.

A Tragedy

by Theophilus Marzials

Death!
Plop.

The barges down in the river flop.

Flop, plop.

Above, beneath.

From the slimy branches the grey drips drop,
As they scraggle black on the thin grey sky,
Where the black cloud rack-hackles drizzle and fly
To the oozy waters, that lounge and flop
On the black scrag piles, where the loose cords plop,
As the raw wind whines in the thin tree-top.

Plop, plop.

And scudding by

The boatmen call out hoy! and hey!
All is running water and sky,

And my head shrieks — “Stop,”

And my heart shrieks — “Die.”

*          *          *          *          *
My thought is running out of my head;
My love is running out of my heart,
My soul runs after, and leaves me as dead,
For my life runs after to catch them — and fled
They all are every one! — and I stand, and start,
At the water that oozes up, plop and plop,
On the barges that flop
And dizzy me dead.
I might reel and drop.
Plop.
Dead.

And the shrill wind whines in the thin tree-top
Flop, plop.
*          *          *          *          *
A curse on him.
Ugh! yet I knew — I knew –
If a woman is false can a friend be true?
It was only a lie from beginning to end –

My Devil — My “Friend”

I had trusted the whole of my living to!

Ugh; and I knew!

Ugh!

So what do I care,

And my head is empty as air –

I can do,

I can dare,

(Plop, plop

The barges flop

Drip drop.)

I can dare! I can dare!

And let myself all run away with my head
And stop.

Drop.

Dead.

Plop, flop.

                                              Plop.

{This has been your first installment of Bad Poetry Week with Olivia Waite. If you’d like to sample something in prose for a palate-cleanser, it just so happens I have a new book out, Color Me Bad, which is available from Ellora’s Cave, ARe (where it’s half off!) and the Kindle store.}