Thursday, November 19, 2009

Bad Poetry.

A few weekends ago Q and C had a party to warm their home. A game was played, that could conceivably have been lame, but wasn't. Each person had pen and paper in hand and jotted down the name of a (made-up) poem. These papers were folded and placed in a basket, then redistributed to the waiting masses. Each person then unfolded their new piece of paper and wrote a poem corresponding to the given title. Again papers were folded and returned to the basket. One by one a paper was drawn and a poem was performed, often with great spectacle. Below is a sampling of our poetry (graciously transcribed by Elizabeth):

"Death and Rumpelstiltskin"
Spin that scythe into gold baby!
The little man is coming for you.

"True Messengers"
True messengers
stab you in the
front
post haste
make waste
reduce
re-use
recycle
true messengers
could never have been
more so.

ps God bless you Al Gore
thank you for your global
warming beard & the interwebs.

"An Ode to Underage Love"
Movies and classes and
a few friends with cars
take a pre-sexed mind,
leaving its masses
and other masses wanting
another's masses of
the corporeal kind.
It's a beginning of a
goddamn odyssey

"Three"
one, two where do I go from here
do I fall off a cliff
do I start a new riff
to fly up a stream
dream a new dream
wishing to be free
or just count to three

"Mama'll Make it Better"
whenever i'm in dire need
mama makes it better
if it's cold and I start to freeze
mama brings me a sweater
but last winter mama died
all last winter i stayed inside
i sat at home all day and cried
mama can't make this better. :( [emoticon in original]

"Molecule Mania Hit West Philadelphia"
molecule mania hit west philadelphia
jack kerouac hit west philadelphia.
all his friends were there.
friend 1. friend 2. friend 3.
they drank coffee in donut shops
and ate donuts in coffee shops.
and wrote whatever words fell from their pen.

"Bareheaded Conquerer"
the bareheaded conquerer conquered
everything. conquered nothing.
who said a conquerer needs a
headdress? or a turban? or a tiara?
not this conquerer.
to the victor goes the spoils.

"I Still Believe in What has Fallen Apart"
I still believe in what has fallen apart,
but that shit don't believe in me.
–Get up! Put your ass back together!
–What are You talkin' about!
I don't know. I'm just talking.
But I'm hoping things work out.

3 comments:

Mieka said...

I actually really, really like this! It is like a grown up version of that 'write a story one line at a time on folded paper' thing we used to do. And, the resulting poems seem just like any other "real" poems in books these days :)

Unknown said...

Oh, my dear Mieka. I love that old paper game so much. A lot of good memories from it. There really were some phenomenal poems/performances, that I think were genuinely good. It is likely because I have smart friends (of which you are one). :)

Anonymous said...

you're mormon! you shouldn't be swearing! go tell your bishop!