a perfect day

Yesterday was a good day. I got drunk on poetry, all the plum trees on my street burst into bloom, as if on Brigid's cue, and the day ended with hearing my all-time favorite bad poem.

Yes, my favorite bad poem.

Years back, a friend had a birthday party where all the guests read a bad poem they had written or did some bad performance art. It was fantastic! There's something completely liberating about creating Bad Art. It's also not quite as easy as it sounds. Try it! There's lots of words that are crying out to be included. Reading poetry all day yesterday, I learned from a lover of Tennyson that we can now adopt abandoned and neglected ones as our own at Savethewords.org. Your poem need not be full of tortiloquy, it just needs to be bad.

My favorite poem at that reading years back was one that my friend's partner, Bill Simpich read. It has stayed with me for over 15 years. This year, I went to their house for a small Brigid ritual which included poetry (mostly good) being read. Bill contributed his bad poem...substituting the line about 12-steppers with something more of the times. You will know that line when you read it. And, please read it. What would the light be without the dark? And what would this ocean of good poetry be without some bad poetry? It was a perfect way to end a perfect day.

Yesterday I posted Walt Whitman's beautiful poem. Today, I am giving you:


BILL SIMPICH'S REALLY GOOD BAD POEM

I am suffering.

I am offering my suffering

To you.

For your enjoyment

And your education

And your edification

And the inevitable reification

Of my suffering


I am suffering

Because our planet is dying

My family is fucked

The facebookers ae everywhere

And the man is at the door


I am suffering

Because our lives are without meaning

But for those values we impose upon them

In these fleeting moments of existence

Dominated by the slavery of a living wage that is nonpareil,

The glossy slickness of advertisements of an utterly vacuous ghostlike form

Of electronically opiated and mediated and emaciated and masticated

Entertainment


I am suffering

Because I cannot see the sun

My eyes are red and hurting

I can only stare at the moon

I adore you, Dark Mother

But now you are dead

Before I join you over there

Won't you join us over here?

Deep in the core, is your heart still beating?

Wasn't your Sea of Tranquillity once teeming with salmon?

Were your meadows filled wtih apples?

Did your inhabitants bask in the earthglow?

Did they suffer from earthburn?


And I am suffering

Because it would be, if nothing else, insufferable

To grow old and die

Without being there

At the creation

And in bringing

To a close

Completely and totally

Once and final

Caving and breaking

That leads to the inevitable

Crashing and burning

That concludes

In the demise

And the fall

Of the American

Empire