An Ode to Giant Turds

This was written for the final Terrible Poetry Contest, a morbid lament about something long gone. I had to pull out something truly terrible that rhymed, and this – this is my final chance at victory!

Those who are faint of heart may turn away, but there is nothing truly offensive below. Just quite foul.

Look how ye curl
Above the water’s surface
You big, sassy turd, source of my pride.

Rare is the whorl
Which rises enough to lance
Through soft, golden expanse, brave height.

But now, brown pearl,
I must take the flushing stance
And send you away, unforgotten but affright.

Thou doth swirl
In a porcelain water-dance
Amidst ribbons and twills of white.

Gone! Flushed, hurled!
My mind is blown, in a trance,
That I couldn’t share your largess and might.

The joy of my innards
When you escaped by chance
During a bowel movement after midnight!

I’ll never unfurl
Our secret toilet stance
That created you, the biggest turd of my life.

Yes, this was about the sadness one feels when flushing a turd so big you kind of feel proud.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Pexels.com

Samurai – Terrible Poetry Contest

I lay down beneath
Falling Sakura blossoms.
I’m best samurai.

This senryu was written for Chelsea Owens’s Terrible Poetry Contest 4/4, senryu. In order to make Karai Senryū (柄井川柳, 1718–1790) roll over in his grave, I decided to make fun of samurai and make a nonsense poem.

Photo by Brett Sayles on Pexels.com

Bug Out Bags

*Warning for Terrible Poetry Followers: This poem is PG-13 at best

With a P-51 and a stash of old food,
One can hold out in style, lighten the mood.
But you’ll still feel alone
With no one to bone,
So be sure to bring tissues and lube.

This was written in response to the Weekly Terrible Poetry Contest, wherein the prompt was a limerick about stockpiling for the end of the world. You can find the original prompt post here.

What’s a P-51? Watch this prepper video to find out!

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Big Science Mountain

The mad scientist created
Freeze rays and said, “This is the best,
I dare anyone to beat me.
I’ll freeze banks and avoid arrest,
Then freeze folks at the city hall
To cause the government to fall.
Yessir, I’m gonna have a ball,
With my freeze ray and my money.

This poem was pooped out of somewhere for the Terrible Poetry Contest #55, “Big Rock Candy Mountain.” In order to do this, I had to read up on the song and found out it was supposed to be about Hobo Paradise. I wrote about Mad Science Paradise.

I chose this photo because all the science done in the 50’s and 60’s was mad science because they didn’t really care if they died from some insane exposure to chemicals or whatever.

Photo by Museums Victoria on Unsplash

Christmas Comes Too Early

Christmas is celebrated
By buying all the bargains.
Put them in packages, bags.
Enjoy with Zuzu’s petals.

Why?

One of the wise men brought gold
To the babe in a manger.
From that moment cold, hard cash
Was God’s sign of approval.

So,

Since sweet Jesus invented
The American dollar,
What’s wrong with you, customer?
Do you hate your own children?

Oh.

You’re poor, have nothing to spend.
Don’t fret! Usury is friend!
Borrow emergency cash,
And spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend!

This was written for Chelsea Owens’s Terrible Poetry Contest #46. I haven’t participated in a while, but this prompt was just too good to let go by.

Bhopal

The December morning air smelled cool, fresh,
Coals of industry a faint background scent.
Bhopal contained an old pesticide plant
That employed locals and brought in money.

Poisonous intermediate
The methyl isocyanate
Built pressure in the old vessels,
But the aging pipes and valves failed.

They thought the meter
Failed and went on home
To leave the pressure
Building on and on.

But then
It popped
Poison
Leakage

Breath
Pain
Death
Vain

Agony of 3,787 deaths
Many more injuries, some severe

No litigation could repay this woe
But it failed to bring justice anyway.
Innocents were killed, but money was made,
Fulfilling the prophecy of profit.

***

This was written for the Terrible Poetry Contest #21, an engineering fail.

When I was in school for Chemical Engineering, the professors repeatedly pointed out Bhopal as the biggest engineering fail we should never aspire to. I think the poem got darker than it should have, and I actually feel like maybe I shouldn’t have written a poem about it, but… I hope I wasn’t funny so much as solemn and contemplative about the subject.

 

Gettin’ Mad Political

This is for Chelsea Owen’s 22nd Terrible Poetry Contest.  The prompt was to write an acrostic about a person you hate, and boy do the depths of my disdain for people in real life reach some fantastic proportions.

In order to assuage the sensibilities of my rather calm, easily embarrassed beloved spouse, I will avoid talking about how I wasn’t sorry that my enemy got cancer.  Instead, I’m going to write about two men who I despise politically.

When he was asked to look back over his presidency and speak of his regrets, Andrew Jackson responded:

I didn’t shoot Henry Clay and I didn’t hang John C. Calhoun.

Henry Clay

He looks like a dead opossum
Except with much less hair
Never won a duel in his life
Rotten butthole of a man
Youthful joy never became him

Corrupt bargains were his specialty
Lost more elections than Nader
Allied with gilded corruption
Your political party is dead

John C. Calhoun

Just a rotten son of a gun
Obsolete before he was born
Hair was an absolute mess
Nullification was the sword he fell on

Campaigned against himself

Carolina was his weapon
Attempted to dissolve the union
Lied about Adams and Monroe
How ’bout that Vice Presidency?
Oh, you did nothing?
Until you became a traitor?
Nullification was so stupid

Zodiac Killer – Terrible Poetry Contest

1 One derke and tempestuous Aprill night,
2 The shirreve clutched his herte in awful fright.
3 The licour of woman’s veynes bathed walls,
4 And with blodde the Ram of spring marked the halles.
5 The shirreve sees drawen to memorie
6 Another mordre with sign of Pisces,
7 Capricornne brot a deth most treasonous,
8 And dede man drowned, sign of Aquarius.
9 He seche and he trowe evidence,
10 But the Zodiac killer’s japed him since.
11 The shirreeve made many pilgrimages
12 To question witnesses in low corages
13 And find preve of the killer’s vileynye
14 To bring him to justise thurgh agonie.
15 Nonne can descrive circumstances of deth,
16 And all cry out hevynesse through bated breeth.
17 Upon giving up and laying to snoose,
18 He at last trowed the killer was Ted Cruz.

***

This poem does need some explaining, as it was written for Chelsea Owens’s weekly Terrible Poetry Contest.  This week, the theme was to parody a well-known, classic poem.  I chose Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and parodied the opening passage.

Since I don’t actually speak middle English, I may have completely garbled my above poem.  I leave here a ‘translation’ so you can at least see what I intended to say.

1 One dark and stormy April night,
2 The sheriff clutched his heart in fright.
3 A woman’s blood covered the walls,
4 The sign of Ares was written in the halls.
5 The sheriff thought of memories,
6 Another murder under sign of Pisces,
7 Capricorn’s sign was a death most treasonous,
8 And dead man drowned, sign of Aquarius.
9 He sought and he thought of evidence,
10 But the Zodiac killer’s tricked him since.
11 The sheriff made many pilgrimages
12 To question witnesses in low spirits
13 And find proof of the killer’s vilainy
14 To bring him to justice through agony.
15 None can describe circumstances of death,
16 And all cry out sadness through bated breath.
17 Upon giving up and laying to snooze,
18 He at last realized the killer was Ted Cruz.

Lastly, if you don’t want to click on the link, the Ted Cruz reference was to a 2015-2016 meme that Ted Cruz was the Zodiac Killer.  It doesn’t make sense, and it’s not supposed to, but I find it funny as hell so there.

The Original Opening Scene to The Canterbury Tales:

1 Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
2 The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
3 And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
4 Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
5 Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
6 Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
7 The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
8 Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
9 And smale foweles maken melodye,
10 That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
11 (So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);
12 Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
13 And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
14 To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
15 And specially from every shires ende
16 Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
17 The hooly blisful martir for to seke
18 That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke.

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Secret Agent Man

Steele steeled his stance,
Fighting for freedom in France,
Really ready to reel Russians
In and insinuate intrigue.

Dreaded documents dredged
Up from underworld undertakings
Show sinister situations,
Blackmail baking in baddies’ brains.

He humps his home-movie
Back to bloody Britain
And advocates for absolution
Of the outstanding ordeal.

Friends faint following the film,
So he sends some signals
At an American agent
That things are taking turns.

But Bob believes his boss.
Pee-pee parties with presidents
Are too astronomically atrocious
For free freedmen to finagle.

So Steele steels his stance,
Takes tea at the typical time,
Cares about the Six Counties, and
Watches the world wither.

***

This was written for the Terrible Poetry Contest #17, under the table dealings, run by Chelsea Owens.  I do have to say that this is, by far, the worst poem I believe I’ve yet published on WP.  

Also sorry for the political intrigue, but pee-pee parties have to be one of the worst possible subjects to write about.