HUMOR: Bad Poetry
Unrequited love has spawned brilliant poetry, memorable music, and whatever Drew was penning. Hold your nose, and read on.
By Drew Gallagher
HUMORIST
Many people have been critical of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. of late, and it’s not because he believes vaccines cause autism or that Tylenol causes autism or that heroin doesn’t cause autism if used under the medical supervision of a desk clerk at a hotel room in South Dakota.
No, people are livid that RFK, Jr. wrote really bad poetry in an effort to woo a woman who was not his wife. (Here at the FXBG Advance my editors insist upon words like “woo” instead of the profanity-based verbiage that Kennedy prefers. And I’m sorry, when looking for a love poem rhyme for “squelch” it should never be “felch”.)
Infidelity and unqualification to dictate medical practice aside, many of us have been guilty of writing bad poetry at some point in our lives. And if I am being more honest than Kennedy was to his third wife, I, too, have written some bad poems in folly because of unrequited love or because a journalist who profiled me was quite fetching. Fortunately for readers of this column, not all of my bad poetry was lost to the Exeter Junior High School toilets after another failed attempt at wooing.
Like Thomas Jefferson before me, these poems were preserved in duplicate because I hoped that one day I would become Virginia’s #1 Humorist, and my public would clamor for more. Well, clamor no more.
I assume that future academics will refer to these poems as an example of my “Yellow Period”.
Yellow Duck (Antietam Lake c. 1976—aged 6)
Little Yellow Duck
I Never Heard The Word
F**k
Until My Father Said It
When The Brown Hawk Grabbed You
While We Were Feeding You Bread.
I Am Sad You Are Dead.
Yellow School Bus (Near Emerald Avenue c. 1982—aged 12)
Your Sweater Was Green
When Tom Was Mean
To You On The Bus.
I Would Have Caused a Fuss
Out Of Love and Not Lust.
But He Could Kick My Ass
So Defending You I Did Pass.
Like Terry Bradshaw To Lynn Swann.
As with all great writers, my style developed as I was exposed to more of the great poets and books. I was profoundly influenced by Edgar Allan Poe during junior high school until I learned what syphilis was and what it did to the human body.
Fortunately, one could not contract syphilis by playing Dungeons & Dragons, but it did sour me a bit on Poe. So, I transitioned to one of the great modern poets, Sting, in this ode to a girl in home economics class soon after getting a thesaurus for Christmas.
Synchronicity (Near Home Ec Ovens c. 1985—aged 15)
Every Cake You Bake
Every Time You See A Lake
I’ll Be Eyeing You.
Every Face You Make
Every Smile You Fake
I’ll Be Viewing You.
Every Photo You Take
Every Leaf You Rake
I’ll Be Observing You.
Every Earth You Quake
Every Bake You Cake
I’ll Be Gazing You.
With high school came an increased exposure to Shakespeare, Yeats, and Peter Gabriel era Genesis, so my poetry became more nuanced, and I discovered that not only did e.e. cummings not capitalize every word in every poem; he rarely used capitalization at all.
Selling Germany by the Pound (Frau Grugan’s Classroom c. 1987—aged purgatory)
Oh, how I miss you,
Sitting in French while Ich die in Deutsch.
If I had known that you might like me this year,
I, too, would have taken French--
the language of love, our love.
I hope you like the mix tape
Because I’m probably going to be grounded
After my parents see my grade in German.
But nothing can keep me from you, mon cheri,
Unless they find where I hid the extra car keys
And then I can’t really make it across Carsonia Avenue
Because there’s something moving in the sidewalk steam.
(See if you can find that last lyric on the mix tape. I really hope you like early Genesis with Peter Gabriel. He sings in French on “Games Without Frontiers.” At least I think it’s French. I know it’s not German.)
And just like RFK, Jr., I found that there is often an ionic bond (according to chemists, one of the strongest) that is forged in the relationship between an interviewer and the impossibly handsome subject of her profile piece which surprisingly left out the part about playing Dungeons & Dragons to avoid getting syphilis.
My Hemingway Nurse (Cell Phone Pre-Screening for Colonoscopy c. 2025, aged 55)
Are you allergic to anything?
--Only human suffering.
So is that a ‘no’?
--I could never say ‘no’ to you.
So that is a ‘yes’?
--Yes, yes and yes again. I will point to the sun and say it’s the moon…for you.
Are you allergic to the sun?
--Not the sun that exists in your eyes.
Do you have a history of skin cancer?
--My wife had a mole removed from her calf.
Your wife’s medical history is immaterial.
--Yes, ours is a forbidden love.
Most foods are forbidden for 24 hours before the procedure. Except clear fluids.
--My mind is as clear as the fluids.
Drink some Ginger Ale if you become nauseated.
--As the poet RFK, Jr. once wrote: I am a river.
Yes, there could be some flushing while you cleanse.
--Will you cleanse my soul too?
Just make sure you have someone to drive you home after the procedure.
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