24th July, 1998

Crap Poetry

  Out there in WWWebland, there's quite a few persons who have taken it upon themselves to make a home page for themselves. As you may know, I crapped on about how pityful some of these attempts are, some half a year ago. The situation has NOT improved. Nor did I expect it to.

  But I'm not going to go on about that subject once again. Not exactly, anyhow. What I want to mumble about today is the unleashing of poetry onto innocent web users. Maybe there's some out there that is positively brilliant - most is not.

  Some would say "Adam, you whining moronic couchpotato, you can't do any better than these people - leave them alone and get back to printing pornography you found on the 'net or whatever the hell it is you do in your spare time, you deranged idiot". Well, to someone who has this interesting little thought, imagine the following scenario. You buy yourself dinner at a restaurant. It turns out to be quite inedible. You'd have every right to complain, even if your food preparation skills stopped at making coffee. The prosecution has no further evidence.

  What exactly do I plan to do about all this F-grade poetry floating about on the WWW? I'm going to fight fire with fire - I've recently unearthed some poems I had to write for Year 9 English. I think you'll find them quite convincing. They cover a whole spectrum of styles we were forced to write in. They're all untitled, however I will point out what style they're meant to be in - because it may not be obvious.

Limerick
There was a dog named Ren
Who once required a pen
He asked his feline friend Stimpy
But he was too whimpy
So the dog just stole one from his cousin Sven

Cinquain
Water
Covers the Earth
Hydro Electricity
Rivers erode the earth around
Wet, cold

Ballad
Long weekends are the time
That is created when Mondays or Fridays become free
Any time is difficult to think of a rhyme
But long weekends are the solution for me

Long weekends often mean trips
For the family, or at least traditionally
This time isn't enough for trips that involve ships
So car is often the way preferred, but many people are killed nationally

One of these weekends
Gives two days to put off jobs around the house
And the third can be when the delaying ends
When you finally get around to, say, getting rid of the dog's louse.

On Sunday I kicked in the dog's home
For shame, I hear you say
But I was not alone
In this action, so it doesn't matter anyway

You see, his home was pine
And although it stood there in its place,
It slowly became the colour of lime
We had to replace it, that's what we had to face

Although the new kennel construction started on Sunday,
It was not completed by the setting of the sun,
Instead it was finished the next day
Painting it was oh such fun

It stands beside the shed,
Painted in premium gloss
The door is rather low, so the dog had better watch his head
This kennel is green as it's painted that way, and is not covered in moss

Diamante (isn't this the name given to the Mitsubishi Magna in the USA?)

Triolet
Bad ideas I have many
None for which I can find a place
Good ideas, it seams, I have hardly any
Bad ideas I have many
My bad ideas can live in the trash with the CD of a guy called Kravitz, Lenny
Lenny always seems to have a strange expression on his face
Bad ideas I have many
None for which I can find a place

  Well that was awfully enjoyable, wasn't it? (I emphasize "awfully"). If you happen to have found meaning or enjoyment in the above, I'd suggest a visit to Mr ElectroShockTherapy - he'll sort you out.

  PS: There was no one specific site which inspired this rant, so please don't contact me saying "do you think my poetry is crap?" or anything of the sort, especially since I'd be then inclined to read it, and I never have and no doubt never will enjoy reading poetry terribly much. The only reason I've stuck this poetry up is that I appear to be having difficulty forming a long enough rant about any one thing in particular, and instead I've recycled this lame poetry while expanding on something which I've talked about before.

Copyright � 24th July 1998.
Opinions expressed here are purely those of Adam Smolarczyk.