Badmovies.org Forum

Skimming the front page of Wikipedia today I noticed in the Did you know? section a reference to the "Worst Poem Ever".

Always curious about the worst of the worst and anxious to spead some real class around this joint, I tracked it down... and so here it is for you mugs' poetry-readin' pleasure:


A Tragedy (1873)
by Theo Marzials (1850-1920)

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.

Like groovy man, this cat is trippin' .... everybody snap!

That poem reads like an 1950's beatnik rant, you can see some dude with a cigarette and blue shades wearing a scarf and cap his latest new hip passage while setting in a smoke filled room upon a bar stole with one spot light illuminating them.

I like this bad poem (don't know the author): 

In days of old
When knights were bold
and toilets weren't invented... 
You left your load
By the side of the road
and walked away...contented! 

Contented you say,
as you walked away.
Leaving steaming stool
upon the road of fools.
For now it is to later
that the toilet awaits.

Spotted on a public toilet wall:

Here I sit
Broken hearted
Came to crap
And only farted

Do you really think it's a good idea to bring up poetry with an English teacher on the board?

"A Tragedy" is indeed bad, possibly worse than my nomination, but not by much:

"The Flea"
by John Donne (1633)

Mark but this flea, and mark in this
How little that which thou deny'st me is;
It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead,
   Yet this enjoys before it woo,
   And pampered swells with one blood made of two,
   And this, alas, is more than we would do.

Oh, stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met
And cloistered in these living walls of jet.
   Though use make you apt to kill me,
   Let not to that, self-murder added be,
   And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop it sucked from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself, nor me, the weaker now;
   'Tis true; then learn how false, fears be;
   Just so much honor, when thou yield'st to me,
   Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.



Or, as I paraphrase it for my classes:

A flea bit you,
And then bit me;
Our blood's mingled,
Why don't we?

Those are truly awful poems, but with all due respect, I think that I may have written the worst poem ever composed in the English language at 4 in the morning of March 6, 1985, in the radio compartment of the USS Lockwood.  Here it is in all its glorious awfulness:

CARS AND BUNNIES AND PEOPLE IN BIG VANS

O cars and bunnies and people in big vans,
Don't got no plastic lips, don't got no rubber hands.
They just sit around all day and read their Harlequin Romance,
them cars and bunnies and people in big vans.

Yes cars and bunnies and people in big vans,
Travel all over the world and visit foreign lands.
They may not always have intact prostate glands,
But they're cars and bunnies and people in big vans.

O cars and bunnies and people in big vans
like to laugh at comedies and sing and dance.
O think what a terrible world it would be sans
Those cars and  bunnies and people in big vans.






NOW BOW DOWN BEFORE MY AWFULNESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :teddyr:

4/10.

I give!!  I give!! My computer was on screensaver for a good 10 minutes laughing at that.  Karma.