Professor Roy and the Amazingly Bad Poetry Journal

Untitled
by Brett

Sometimes I dream, Ophelia, that when we dance
you move towards me,
press yourself against me.
Ophelia, I see the day of bliss;
Our bodies whip around leafless trees,
branches flow in the wind, dying
to the song of awakening,
touching my open loneliness.
Ophelia, I thank you for this place,
where the present breeze fills the plans,
expanding into the life of love.
And in this garden, dispersing of concerns
changes grief to the laughter of innocence.
Our Eden grows with each affection.


This poem is presumably about a person named Ophelia, and not the Ophelia. You must be completely superstition-less to name a child Ophelia. What happens when she gets old enough to date? If I was a dad to a teenage Ophelia, I’d be up all night worrying that soon I’m going to be stabbed in a case of mistaken identity and subsequently my daughter will go insane and commit suicide. Also sometime before my stabbing, my wife will pass away or otherwise be inconsequential to the plot. I was going to suggest that this Ophelia could be a nickname or a pseudonym, but that’s even worse. “Here, sweetie, carry these wildflowers. Don’t ask me why. If you ask me why, you ruin it for me.” Also, once a week, he has to exhibit bizarre behavior around her and sometimes he has to scream at her that she should become a nun.

I think this is yet another unrequited love situation, but I’m not entirely sure. In the first lines, Brett doesn’t say that he dreams that they’re dancing. He says that he dreams of their dancing like Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey in 1987. Dirtily. Dig. In Brett’s subconscious according to how the line is written, he wants Ophelia to do some good old-fashioned boner-inducing grinding. I can’t tell you how happy I am that a high school student might find this review when he/she is trying to find a paper on Hamlet to plagiarize. I’m thinking that Brett meant to write that he dreams that they dance and they’ve never actually danced in real life. Otherwise, he’s suggesting that Ophelia is about as sexy as a tapir.

I think Brett must have saddled his lady love with this poorly chosen fake name so that there’s no danger of her finding it if she ever chooses to Google random classmates or co-workers. Yeah, it’s a long shot, but you never know. You want to dodge that bullet before the gun is fired.

The fact that he imagines their dancing through a barren winter forest can mean nothing good at all. If Brett lived in Vienna in 1906, Siggy’s eyes would turn into dollar signs when he heard about this. Apparently Brett intends this as a rebirth metaphor. Their dance turns the lifeless "plans" [sic] (oh dear me) into an Eden. Because nothing bad has ever happened in Eden. I understand that it’s the tree branches (and not Ophelia) that are touching Brett’s ... open loneliness..., but that doesn’t make the line any less horrifying.

Bad Poetry Grade [F = your standard bad poem; A+ = worst poem imaginable]: B-

Untitled
by Charles

I changed her mind about the ice. I held her feet;
I gave her skates.
I held her as we walked on water:
Simple figure eights.
All her balance
In my hands, her hands on my
Coat's down lining.
Strolling 'round a quartz ellipse,
Cold when hands go down mining.
We went on out
Into the vertex of the scraping sounds.
Faith in a possible ruse:
How we fly in deux formation
From the metal on our shoes.
All around's the echelon of
Fathers and their young, two patterns
These days are just a lonely lifetime
You can be my fulfill sometime.


What a lovely winter scene. It's a shame Charles had to go and ruin it by writing this poem that has all the charm of frozen snot. First of all, "Untitled"? Un-fucking-titled? Charles, are you trying to get my ulcer to quadruple in size? Clearly you are trying to do that, Charles, because you could not do the right thing by calling this poem "Skating" or "Reflections on Ice" or "Ice Ice Baby." In the interest of full disclosure, I've written "Untitled" poems before. I am equally guilty of being a pretentious douchebag who felt that his poem transcended the need for a title. "Oh, but giving a title to this poem would be like trying to give a title to the happiest, most spiritual moment of ones life." Please do not open your mouth ever again. If you are a professional poet, you can get away with "Untitled", in limited quantities. No, wait, I changed my mind. Professional poets should know better too. It's like a movie where one or more of the main characters isn't given a name. It better be a really good movie, like "Rebecca" or "The Brother from Another Planet." If this poem was a movie, it would not be a good movie.

By the time we've finished reading the first two lines, we've already given up hope. "I changed her mind about the ice. I held her feet; / I gave her skates." Now, I'm pretty sure, about 98% sure that he held her feet in order to put the skates on her feet. But the way the line is written, the way he chose to arrange the text, it seems that holding her feet was how he changed her mind about the ice. Why does he say "I held her feet" when a certain percentage of us will want to complete the line with "to the fire." As in, "I held her feet to the fire." Fire. Ice. Author possibly thinking he's cute and clever. From Cambridge's Dictionary of American Idioms via the Free Dictionary website, "hold somebody's feet to the fire - to cause someone to feel pressure or stress." Fantastic.

I believe Charles is seeking a quaint, pastoral "Charlie Brown's Christmas" tone with his poem, but he fails at setting this mood entirely because of two things. First, there is this bizarre word choice. Echelon of fathers? Quartz ellipse? Deux formation? We understand what he's saying, but why the $2 words in a nickel worth of poem? Did he get a vocabulary-word-of-the-day calendar for his birthday? "Echelon" and their ilk do not fit in this poem. They are immediately distracting and stick out like a bloody thumb in your Old Spaghetti Factory dish.

Then there's this bizarre detail: "In my hands, her hands on my / Coat's down lining. / ... Cold when hands go down mining." Mining where? For heavens sake, mining where? He's describing her cold hands, touching him ... where? Is she just holding onto him for balance? Then why describe it as "mining?" I associate the word 'mining' with the word 'under.' How much can you get away with in public and at a skating rink? Hands shouldn't "go down mining" in public, much less when there's kids present. It may very well be that this is a father writing about skating with his daughter, in which case I apologize for this paragraph. We already knew I'm headed to hell.

Bad Poetry Grade [F = your standard bad poem; A+ = worst poem imaginable]: D

Colors
by Ana, Mission Viejo, CA
originally posted May 2005 (holy shit!)

Let's see,today, I will wear red,
the color of passion rising in my heart,
tomorrow, green, the color of hope,
like the new vegetation, young grass;
perhaps the day after, I will wear yellow
like a daffodil, and imitate the sun
while I warm myself under its rays
and after that, blue to reflect the sky
and the coolness of sea waves;

In the private realm of my bedroom,
I will wear white, the sum total of color
because there my passion, my hopes,
my dreams come together
and before I go to sleep,
they will vaporize
and became the mist of remembrance
that rises to celebrate life!


This is "If Mallory from "Family Ties" wrote a poem"... ...will you just pick something to wear already?! Dear god! Remind me to never invite Ana out to a movie, because I can almost guarantee that we'll be late. And god help you if you make me late to a movie. I'll be waiting out in the car, beeping the horn, and she's still be establishing a psychic link with her closet. What if her mood schedule changes? Oh, well, that means we have to start all over again, from the beginning. Some would argue, Ana, that if you really want to be one with the natural world (the very generic natural world in this case), you should just go around naked. If you had come to this decision years ago, you could have spared us this poem entirely. At least she's confident that she looks good wearing all these colors. I never see anyone wearing yellow (and for good reason). I cry foul at her imitating the sun and warming herself under its rays. I would like to think that she's radioactive - so heat actual eminates from her body. She can toast bread with her thighs.

There was a TV commercial a while back where a black woman read a generically pretentious inspirational poem to an audience (I think it ended with "Free....(dramatic pause)...to be me."). It was a liberated-women poetry slam as seen by ad executives. It was a toothpaste commercial. It made me ill. The second stanza reminds me of that ad. It's just so goddamn cheery! Her perkiness makes me want to throw rocks at her car. "Life is wonderful!" Ana is saying -- hell, she's screaming it at us as she drives a truck toward us at 70 mph. "Ain't life grand? I have the bestest wardrobe of anybody! Bow down before me!" This poem has that exclaimation point at the end, which I hate. I hate exclaimation points anyway. I use them on the ABPJ a lot, because I'm often pissed off, but I try to avoid them. You should only use an "!" when it's totally necessary. RIGHT: "The woods are lovely, dark and deep, / But I have promises to keep, / And miles to go before I sleep, / And miles to go before I sleep." WRONG: "The woods are lovely, dark and deep, / But I have promises to keep, / And miles to go before I sleep, / And miles to go before I sleep!!"

"Private realm" calls to mind an out-of-the-way store that sells oils and special toys. And there's some sort of hanky panky going on in the bedroom in this poem. There must be some reason she's wearing passion-hot red on the first day and (virginal?) white in her bedroom on the next. I would think it would be the other way around. "I will wear white, the sum total of color" -- no it's not! Everyone above the age of 3 knows that when you combine all the colors together (thinking you'll get a rainbow effect), you get a disgusting murky brown. Red = passion. Green = hope. Yellow = jaundice. Oh, and dreams. I think. Or does blue equal dreams?

If there are sexual undertones (I'm not sure at all) where's the sexual partner? Where's the person she's planning to boink? Maybe she's planning to go solo. If not sex, what's so special about this goddamned bedroom? Why is it the place where the universe converges? Oh, let me guess, you painted it blue with puffy white clouds. I am of the belief that ones bedroom serves as a place to have sex and a place to sleep (in that order). I would argue that those two are the most common uses for a bedroom. A bedroom is NOT a place to make an artistic statement (unless you're making an artistic statement during sex.) This may be just wishful thinking on my part. This could just be Ana finding herself, in touch with her soul, blah de-blah blah blither blah blah. But I can hope that she's planning on having sex, right? Surely you'll allow me that. C'mon!

Bad Poetry Grade [F = your standard bad poem; A+ = worst poem imaginable]: B

Winter Warmth
by Kyle

When tall trees groan in bitter wind,
and frost leaves its cold design,
I dwell on the reality
that I am yours, and you are mine.

When brittle twigs do bear their claws,
cast shadows on an auburn snow,
ablaze they are in their glory,
in winter sunset's afterglow.

When snowflakes fall in winter night,
Time stops with lovers' long discourse.
Outside, the world is clad in white,
Is seen in beauty, not remorse.

Inside, beside the fire light
we revel in our honey love,
and melt into sweet harmony,
as soft feathers float from above.


The opening stanza of "Winter Warmth" hints at an entirely different poem. Dollars to donuts this is another example of a poet with one idea that he tried to stretch, like stale saltwater taffy, into several ideas. "I dwell on the reality / that I am yours, and you are mine," Kyle writes and because I've read way too many X-Men comics, my brain immediately goes to "hey, alternate realities!" I also watched the entire first season of "Sliders" in 1995. This is apparently someone speaking about an unrequited love and he is telling us that he is imagining a reality where the love is requited. Okay, we may say to ourselves, we’ll go along with this premise. Maybe Kyle has a bouquet of flowers up in his sleeve.

Nope. Unless he’s carrying around an Amorphophallus titanum, the corpse flower. Immediate disappointment strikes with "brittle twigs do bear their claws” at the beginning of the second stanza. I expect that we could deliver a small stroke to Kyle's brain if we explained that the word "do" in the line is not necessary. The line reads exactly the same without it. I would argue that the line is marginally less terrible without the "do," but I bet that Kyle would argue to keep it in. To him, it lends a certain charm. When Kyle is at a party and notices that a woman needs a refill in her red plastic cup, I imagine him saying "May I do you the courtesy of refreshing yon flagon of ale, m'lady?" I shouldn't be so harsh, considering that the extraneous "do" is the only example of faux old-speak in the entire poem. But really, one is too many.

It wouldn't be so bad, but it doesn’t lead into anything. The whole stanza is a whole lot of nothing. If you were to strip the stanza down to its barest essentials, winter trees are mysteriously beautiful during the sunset. Okay, that's fine, but what happened to dwelling in a different reality? In the first stanza, Kyle tells us that he teleports himself to a new plane of existence during winter months. If this was a multi-course meal, the first stanza would be an unremarkable but mostly inoffensive tomato soup. Then after the soup, instead of a salad or any other dishes, we’re served a crusty glove found on the side of the freeway. Bon appétit!

As far as the last stanza goes, ick ick ick ick ick. Blurgh. I'm glad I'm writing this review on an empty stomach. Given the "afterglow" in stanza two, I suspected something like this was on its way, but what the holy fuck is "honey love"? I'll be honest, people, I haven’t had any sort of intimate relations in several long years. Say that I'm out at my friend's bar later this week (likely) and I meet the "Price Is Right" model Amber (not likely). We strike up an intelligent conversation about the upcoming Avengers movie and "The Dark Knight Rises." After last call, she asks if I would like to come up to her hotel room for some honey love. I would have to turn her down. I'd probably ask for a definition of honey love first, and then I would turn her down. Tragic. You don’t suppose he meant "horny love"? Not that "horny love" makes more sense. And what do we make of the feathers? My best guess: he’s having sex with a feather-down pillow and it exploded. And he’s in zero gravity.

Bad Poetry Grade [F = your standard bad poem; A+ = worst poem imaginable]: C

Launching Pad
by Dee

She bought her clothes at the discount chain,
No sugar Daddy, no gravy train.
A simple girl of ordinary means
She often ate wieners without any beans.
She imagined better and in her dreams
She ate elegant chocolates, only the creams.
She drank bubbly, expensive champagne
Soaring the world in her private plane.
She knew imagination was totally free
So late at night she would smile with glee
Picking piles of bills from the money tree.
She went on adventures wearing only her robe
With zebras and elephants she traveled the globe.
If anyone would ask her and discreetly probe
How she could afford the adventures she had
She would show them the library that was her launching pad.


As a lifelong fan of libraries, I can appreciate that Dee used a library as an escape. What I object to is her smug bragging. I escaped to the library because I didn't have a lot of friends and the library was peaceful and quiet. It's rare that I admit to sharing a quality with an ABPJ author, but I would think Dee doesn't have a lot of friends either. Imagine this dialogue that Dee paints at the end of her poem.

"Hi Dee! How was your weekend?"

"It was awesome! I took my private jet to a secret tropical island with Michael Crichton and then had dinner with Anthony Bourdain and then uncovered a awesomely stupid religious conspiracy with Dan Brown! Then I had a threesome with Rosemary Rogers and Truman Capote!"

"Wait, isn't Michael Crichton dead?"

"Yep!"

"Well, since I have the brain of a tapeworm, I have to ask, how did you afford all of this on the salary of a dental hygienist?"

"An excellent question, old friend. I will tell you where I began this trip. You need not look farther than our local library!"

"Oh Dee! That's wonderful! How insightful! I wish I could read! But I can't because I'm a contrived bullshit device in your crappy poem."

I was going to compliment Dee on her consistent rhyme scheme, but then I double-checked. You will note that she switches abruptly at the halfway point. Somehow this feels worse than if she just abandoned the rhyming scheme after the first four lines. Check out her rhyming skills. She rhymed free, glee, and tree. Then because she was on a roll, she knocked down robe, globe and probe. Ogden Nash can suck it. Dee continues to aggravate me with her "money tree." A money tree doesn't seem like a thing that would be imagined as a result of visiting the local library. It feels like something that would be imagined by a hobo high on opium in 1931.

I would be remiss if I did not bring up the fourth line of the poem: "She often ate wieners without any beans." If Dee was invited to read this poem to my peers when I was in 4th grade, this line would have caused a riot that would have eventually destroyed most of our affluent suburb. When writing any poem, you have to ask yourself if any of the lines will cause a 10-year-old to eventually throw a brick through the window of a fro-yo business. If the answer is yes, the line should be immediately exorcised. I am not so mature that I cannot see the humor in this. Ignoring the potential ribald jokes and viewing the line from a literal perspective, aren't beans significantly cheaper than hot dogs? You can buy twelve 13 ounce cans of Heinz beans for $21, according to a quick Google search. That's $1.75 per can, for almost 10 pounds of beans. Wouldn't it be more cost effective to eat the beans without weiners? You could argue that beans are marginally healthier.

Bad Poetry Grade [F = your standard bad poem; A = worst poem imaginable]: A-

The Amazingly Bad Poetry is definitely not made possible by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

The Hope Chest
by Lynette

The quilts that Grandma held so dear
Still fragrant with the scent of her
I keep in that place always near
An old photo album with relatives
Most that I have never met
The ballet slippers covered in pink chiffon
That I have coward to try on
A cameo that captures a life lived so well
That came with stories told me, that now I
can tell
But the one item I will cherish the most
Is the Wedding dress she wore that day when
she was the toast
This is my Hope Chest from Grandma to me
Made of a beautiful cherry wood tree
And one day it will be passed from me to
My Granddaughter
As only it should be


I'm sure some of you read the APBJ because you're horrified by what I do here. Or maybe you're a first-time visitor to my humble comedy schtick and you're already horrified at my review of a poem that was probably read at someone's memorial service. I'm fine with horror. I'll be the first person to admit that this blog is morally reprehensible. If you believe in hell, I'm on a Japanese bullet train non-stop to that destination. Now that we have all of that out of the way -- is anyone else imagining the mummified corpse of Grandma in the chest, under the ballet slippers and quilts? And if I'm the only one, what's wrong with me? There must be something wrong with a person who thinks that after reading "The quilts that Grandma held so dear / Still fragrant with the scent of her." See above: it's been well-established that I'm a bit of a dick.

I like how the cameo carries stories with it, and Lynette tells us that these are stories passed down to her -- but considering Lynette has never heard of "show, don't tell," these stories must be snoozefests. Or else Lynette has no idea of any treasured stories and she doesn't exactly know what a cameo is.

I'd like to know what happened with lines 6 and 7: "The ballet slippers covered in pink chiffon / That I have coward to try on." It's like Lynette began to write "The ballet slippers / that I have yet to try on" but fell asleep in the middle of writing the lines. This is a great example of why it's proofread to necessary. There's also the very scary but very real possibility that Lynette thinks this line makes sense as is. The word "coward" appears in place of the word "yet," as if this was a subliminal message to herself, as if Lynette has a touch of the good ol' TV crime drama show favorite, multiple personality disorder. I've read this poem several times, and there's no other subliminal accusations scattered in it. If I had a nefarious streak, I'd add my own, just to make this poem more interesting.

Speaking about being a dick, what about this tradition with the hope chest? It's passed down from grandmother to granddaughter? What about if there's no granddaughter? Why is it only limited to granddaughters? If Grandma had a daughter, shouldn't it go to her? And if Lynette has a daughter, shouldn't that daughter have a right to the chest? Has there ever been a legal dispute over the rightful owner of this antique chest? If there isn't, there's bound to be one, considering how ill-constructed the rules are. I'm not done. Let's say Lynette gives birth to sons and those sons produce nothing but more sons. Is Lynette obligated to give the chest to her grandson so he can then saddle his wife with an antique that doesn't even belong to her family? Or -- and this seems like the more reasonable possibility -- is Lynette obligated to be cremated along with the chest? The chest is more trouble than it's worth.

Bad Poetry Grade [F = your standard bad poem; A+ = worst poem imaginable]: C-

Have you no scruples? Nope! Have you a Facebook page? Yes!

Closeness
by Martin

When the night suffocates the day
stars appear and drill tiny holes in the darkness.
I look up and know that my little girl spots the same holes
eventhough she's thousands of miles away.
A smile runs over my face
like a falling star that cuts a frosty night.
Closeness is not measured in miles
but in heart beats.
My heart beats with yours, I am with you.
If you feel lonesome look up to the stars and that tiny one,
in the upper left corner, the one that flashes,
that is the same I am looking at, right now!


Stars appear AND they drill tiny holes in the darkness? If the tiny holes in the darkness are, in fact, the stars, how can they appear before they appear? Maybe not all stars are created equally? Some stars are actually stars -- there's red giants and white dwarfs, etc. -- but since there's an finite number of stars, the stars are equipped with Craftsman power tools so they can drill tiny holes in the darkness. That way, it looks like there's more stars than there actually are. Unluckily, the holes heal themselves when Jolly Mr. Sun clocks in for the day, not unlike Prometheus and his liver, so the stars have to drill the same holes every night. They use chalk to remember where each one goes. Cosmic chalk. Some stars have suggested to Martin that they drill large holes so it'll be easier for him and his daughter to connect over the night sky. But Martin likes having the challenge. The stars have also suggested to Martin that after a basic understanding of constellations and/or the placement of Mars and Venus in the night sky, he and his daughter can actually bond over an object in the night sky. The stars also wonder about time zones.

I want you and a friend or lover to go outside right now, provided it is currently night. If you can't can't see stars in your area, take a car or a helicopter to a spot where you can see stars. Pick a star and then direct your friend or lover to that star using the same sort of directions that Martin employs in his poem ("upper left corner, the one that flashes"). Is it worth pointing out that the sky doesn't have corners? If your friend or lover is a reasonable, sane person, they will try to strangle you after about ten minutes of you trying to get him or her to look at the same star.

Wait, I have an idea, Martin! What about the freaking moon? It's illuminated by the sun, which is a star. Unlike an individual star, apparently picked at random, it's easy to find. You know what, I'm going to decide for you. I have a feeling you're very stubborn. We don't know why Martin's daughter is thousands of miles away. Martin doesn't say that it's because of his poetry, but I think it's heavily implied. She's either serving on an aircraft carrier or she's attending the University of Florida. Or she's Audrey Hepburn in "Sabrina."

Bad Poetry Grade [F = your standard bad poem; A+ = worst poem imaginable]: C+

Star light, star bright, the first star I see tonight, become a fan of this reprehensible blog on the Facebook, potato blight, Veronica Cartwright

Saying Good-Bye
by Carrie

I woke up early that morning
it was the first time in years I was up before sunrise.
The house was silent, the kids left years ago and
they all have families of their own.
I recorded the show you like to watch and I made
your favorite breakfast pancakes with homemade strawberry syrup.
I cannot wait to see you, Jonathan
I miss your smile, laughter, sarcastic remarks,
and I miss your hugs and kisses.
I grabbed my coat and was out the door
I got into my car and drove to your home to visit you one more time.
Doctor Shapiro thinks it is unhealthy for me
to keep visiting you because I will never move on.
This will be the last time I see you.
I open the car door and walked toward the
entrance to your new home, I put flowers on the doorstep,
I looked down as tears began to slide down my face.
I grabbed the shovel from the trunk
so I could hug you one more time,
I just wanted to say good-bye; I just wanted to say good-bye.


I've reviewed some miserable poetry on the ABPJ, but this one wins the gold cigar. This one is going to haunt me long after I post it. The pancakes were the kicker. Hell, lady, most of the batch is going to waste. That's tremendously sad even if you're not the cheapest person on earth who hates seeing food going to waste (that is, me).

For all of you who are disgusted that I'm mocking the geniune grief of a woman in a great deal of pain, I've committed much worse sins. That is, there's better reasons for you to be disgusted. For example, you can instead be disgusted by my certainty that this poem is a piece of manipulative bullshit fiction. I'll go so far as to call it a trashy death poem. There are trashy romance novels, trash sci-fi novels, this is a trashy poem on the subject of love/loss/death. This is not based on Carrie's real life. She is portraying a woman whose brain has thrown a rod. I'll tell you why: no actual mourning person would express their pain in a poem with a surprise ending. Not only is it a surprise ending, but it's an entirely unbelievable surprise ending. It's not clever. It's not sad or touching. It's not even that disturbing, relatively speaking. In order to believe the rest of the poem, you have to believe that she put a shovel in the back of her Chrysler with the intention of digging up the casket so she can hug him one more time. Let's hope she has a iron-clad stomach. Okay, I hear the populace saying, the shovel might have been a fantasy born out of inconsolable grief, but the rest of the poem might be real, eh? Eh nothing. I doubt any real widow would want to entertain theat sort of idea. Maybe a character in a movie ("Pet Semetary") or a TV show ("Twin Peaks"), but not real life. She wanted to shock us. Did she shock you?

In the build-up to the shocking twist, you will notice that she deliberately avoids showing her hand. The gravesite is the "entrance to [his] new home" and she places flowers on the "doorstep," meaning the gravemarker. But even gerbils know that she's talking about a grave at this point. She's not laying flowers on the doorstep of his new condo. Doesn't doorstep suggest that the gravestone is a door? I picture the gravedigger swinging open the stone, dropping the casket inside, and then shutting it. My imagination also ran wild in regard to the strawberry syrup. Did Jonathan and his widow live in an International House of Pancakes? I'll be tremendously surprised if any of you have had strawberry syrup outside of a restaurant.

Bad Poetry Grade [F = your standard bad poem; A+ = worst poem imaginable]: C+

You Are My Sunshine
by Nick

(Please note first word of each line spells title)

Yearning to be by your side,
Out of reach but hungrily eyed,
Unsung the flow of the passions tide.

Aching, craving needing more,
Reeling emotions, je t’adore
Enlightenment dawning, furthermore.

Malignantly caught by this mantrap,
Youthful smile that doth bind and doth wrap.

Sexily shimmering, beauty abound,
Unusually drawn, true love so profound,
Sassy and classy, is there common ground?
Honey a sweetheart, so please stay around.
In my clear notion our love can be crowned.
Never before have I felt so unsound,
Excepting my advances story unwound.


Poetry.com has changed considerably in recent years. You can now review the submitted poems and give them a score on a 1-10 scale. The top poem of the day, month, and year receive money prizes. I'm not sure how it works if the same poet is at #1 for many weeks in row. The whole site has become a massive circle jerk with thousands of participants. Like the hundreds of other social networking sites, it's potentially addicting. That's why one user has posted approximately 2,500 reviews (1-2 sentences each) since May 2010. I'd be very curious to know what this woman's house looks like. There's a remarkable flaw in the system, as there's nothing to stop someone from voting '10' on the same poem over and over again. A composition entitled "Them Monkeys at the Zoo" had 45,000 ratings before being removed by an admin. At the time of this writing, the top poet is a fellow named Ian. He has 251 poems on the site. 92 of these are listed in the daily top 100. It would seem that the poetry.com denizens would worship Ian if he began writing poems dedicating to insulting other authors on the site. They would continue to toss roses at him if instead of poems, he posted JPGs of his athlete's foot fungi.

On the new poetry.com, Nick's poem was rated 18 times for an averaged score of 7.772 out of 10. 11 people have reviewed it, with one to three sentences in each review. Why am I mentioning all of this? What does the inane rating system and the ad nauseam reviews of each others poems have to do with anything? It is because not one of the 11 humans who reviewed Nick's acrostic poem pointed out that the title of the poem should really be "You Are My Sushine."

This is the poetic equivalent of the Detroit Lions going 0-16 in 2008. Nick forgot the "N" from the acrostic poem. I did not write the note in parentheses at the beginning of the poem. This is all Nick. I'd like to believe the poem is an elaborate joke that never had a pay off because no one noticed. I'm wondering if the error should be viewed as even more flagrant because Nick's name begins with N. Maybe it's tunnel vision. He's so used to seeing the letter N, he forgets it when it's necessary. I swear, if poetry.com shuts down this blog tomorrow, it would all be worth it. I think this is better than the aspun, the anishels, or the explosive shafts. As you can tell, I don't get out much.

My best guess is that Nick wrote the line and then deleted it, meaning to go back and rewite it. At least, that's what I hope happened. What probably really happened is that he was watching "Family Guy" clips on his ipod while writing this poem and that was sufficient to keep the line out. I'm going to stand out on a limb with the theory that the line would have begun with "Naked." Maybe that's the reason it was cut out. It was too lewd/distasteful for a family website. I would argue that it's much more perverse for an acrostic poem to be missing a line.

The poem itself does not help anything. It is disconnected to the point where it might as well have been written by 15 different people. The person assigned to the first 'N' fell asleep, due to being drunk. Speaking of drunkeness, can someone explain to me the motive behind the lines "Malignantly caught by this mantrap, / Youthful smile that doth bind and doth wrap." Malignantly? Do I have to explain that there is no way something can be described as both "malignant" and positive? See also: hostile, unfriendly, malicious. Nick, are you okay? Is there something I can do? Call me. Let's talk, dude. He also calls this (hopefully fictional) woman a "mantrap." Did you have a hard time thinking of rhymes for "succubus" or "tramp"?

Bad Poetry Grade [F = your standard bad poem; A+ = worst poem imaginable]: A+

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Falling Angel
by Michael

I am gazing at the azure sky
When I saw a two-winged object falling
From the sky down to the ground
Crashed in the land with a gentle sound
Curiosity mesmerize me to search

I see a helpless creature
A vulnerable one....
No one to bare, No one to share
At that very time I see a reflection
A reflection of myself

As I go nearer in the object
My doubts slowly turn into trust
All my fears vanish really fast
I touched her with my bare hands
A great feeling swallowed me

Holding her,I felt an inner peace
Like a child found his security blanket
And I know her feeling is mutual
I just wish heaven would not take her away
And I hope she can be my ANGEL forever...


To quote Tom Servo in a late episode of "Mystery Science Theater 3000", 'if I run out of vomit, can I have some of yours?' As much as I might wish that this is not an actual ode to an actual woman, that prayer will go unanswered. It's clear from the last stanza that Michael is probably speaking to a specific person -- to the detriment of all mankind.

I'm wondering if Michael is aware that he constructed a poem around a pick-up line frequently found on lists of sleazy pick-up lines. The guy says "Did it hurt?" The woman says "Did what hurt?" And the guy says "When you fell from heaven?" Only that would never happen. The guy would say "Did it hurt? " and the woman, having read this one in a list of increasingly stupid/insulting pick-up lines in a forwarded email from 1995, would say "Stop breathing my air, douche." I'm almost positive that no one this side of Leisure Suit Larry has actually ever used a punny, "amusing", "flattering" pick-up line.

Okay, maybe Michael has never heard of this pick-up line. Maybe he was just writing about his beloved's metaphorical fall from heaven into his life. Okay, fine, good. But but but but ... did he have to be so repulsive? The word creepy isn't strong enough. In what dimension is it flattering to call your purported soulmate "helpless", as in "I see a helpless creature / A vulnerable one"? What are Michael's fears and why do they vanish "really fast"? If the person is helpless and vulnerable, you generally don't fear that person. And I like how, without any sort of invitation, he is holding her by the last stanza, whereupon he compares to her to a security blanket!

I count two possible Freudian slips in the third stanza. These are essentially my bread and butter. He doesn't go nearer to the angel woman. He goes nearer in the angel. Then a great feeling swallows him. Excuse me, I have to go replace my skin. He also refers to her as an object in this stanza. Now, he sees an object fall from the sky in stanza one. But that was before he knew she was angel. It could have been a rogue satellite, or a duck, or an Archaeopteryx. Really, it could have been one of any number of two-winged objects."Wait," Michael should have said to himself. "Two winged? How many three-winged objects can I name? None? Then 'winged' should be just fine."

"I just wish heaven would not take her away / And I hope she can be my ANGEL forever..." Is heaven threatening to take her away? Does she have an incurable disease? No? Then don't bring it up. It makes it sound like you're going to smother her with a pillow because you don't want other men looking at her.

Bad Poetry Grade [F = your standard bad poem; A+ = worst poem imaginable]: C-

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