Loves me salty crackers
Loves them all day long
Loves them in my 'mato soup
'n' dipped in my won ton

Loves them crispy saltines
Loves them Triscuits too
Don't care much for Goldfish 'cuz
They can't hold the fondue.

If you want some Cheez-Its
Well, I'll sure share what I got
But don't you touch my Wheat Thins, Son
That just make me hot

Likes to wash them down with
One big swig o' Mountain Dew
But all I got is milk today
Hmmmmmm.....
Likes me cookies too!

It's time once again for that most beloved feature of GPBlogs: Bad Poetry Corner.

Of course The Three of You know what I'm talking about. But if anyone from a parellel universe has wandered in here unannounced and lost, I give you this link to define the purity of Bad Poetry in all its many splendored forms.

Today we dig into a vault which was cemented shut for humanitarian purposes before I took a jackhammer to the slab and made it accessable once more.This Bad Poem is seeing the light of day for the first time in nearly thirty years. I hope you don't enjoy.

FETCH ME A CUP OF LOVE, DEAR, BEFORE YOU SAY GOODBYE

I look at you
    and quiver with fear
When I realize that, someday, you'll go
    Though I want you always here

You have been the source
    Of so many inspirations
        You have shared in my creations
Though I want you to stay
    and bask
        in my sea of immortality
I know 'twould be unfair
    if others were not allowed
        to know you as I have
            to drink your warmth and sensitivity

You have touched me
    As you're sure to touch many others
        I will never forget

You will go soon
    to spread that misty formula
        of love
            and joy
                and simplicity
And the world will be richer

I will continue on
    and hope
        when I dip my cup

Into Life's rich supply of Happiness
    my well
        has not
            run dry




There now. that wasn't so good, was it? Tomorrow as a special treat I will perfom an autopsy on this Very Bad Poem so we can discover together with certainty whether this poem died of natural causes or , perhaps, was bludgeoned in a fit of rage by some mad lover of Frost. Until then, then, keep thinking warm thoughts and distill them all into Bad Poetry.
       
   

Because I feel we have bonded, The Three of You and I, it's time to put your loyalty to the test. What was it we--I mean they--said in the seventies? "If you love something set it free. If it doesn't come back, it was never really yours. But if it does return you will have it forever."

Like The Ten Year Old might say: "Yeah . . . rrrright." She really hangs on that "r" too. You should hear the sarcasm. It's a thing of great cynical beauty.

In any case, tonight I introduce a new feature in our ever-expanding universe of literary straws to grasp. I call it "Bad Poetry Corner."

For tonight's feature I have dredged the muddy waters of my long past, er . . . past . . . to the paginated depths where the bottom feeder of rhyming meter dwells. From a small chapbook entitled "A Fresh Daisy, a Plastic Rose" I once self-published (as it seems no one else would self-publish it for me) I give you now the neo-classic ode:

Your Symptom is Familiar, But I Can't quite Place the Disease
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

My soul is high, my heart is light,
I'm gassey; I'm elated!
But who am I to call it love?
I might be constipated.

Now then. That wasn't so good, was it?

From time to time I will continue publish Bad Poetry Corner until The Three of You become the Two of You and so on until I myself abandon this blog and allow the tumbleweds to take over.

Meantime, I'd like to invite anyone who feels they have written poetry of such poor quality to be actually considered for Bad Poetry Corner to click on my email link and send me a stanza or thirty-seven.

Please keep one thing in mind, though. Lots of people believe they write bad poetry. Friends have discouraged them for years and these bogus bards believe they truely possess the gift. But they are wrong. They are merely bad poets. Not to be snide, but ANYONE can be a bad poet. It takes a righteous artist to pen the objectively awful poem.

The distinction is simple. The bad poet is a misguided writer who doesn't have a clue how to string seven words together in any remotely artful manner. Your eighth grade English teacher was a bad poet who was smart enough to never allow her work to see the school's yearly literary mag.

But a bad poem must be one the author him/herself actually believed at one point in life was of such stellar quality that it might bring love, fame, fortune and a place of honor in that year's "Top 100 American Poets" published by Vantage Press.

A really baaaaaaad poem is one that generally can be viewed when the cold light of day shines the eloquent ray of introspection through the prism of time.

A few minutes ago The Teenager asked me what I was doing, so I read this post in progress. I invited her to send me a candidate for Bad Poetry Corner. She told me, "I don't mean to brag, Dad. But I don't really think I have any bad poems."

"Do you know why that is?" I asked.

"No."

"Because you're not thirty."

Alright everyone, send me your poor, your tired, your huddled masterpieces. I'll be the judge whether they are good enough for Bad Poetry Corner.