Bad Poetry

New Poems in the last few months...

2007-09-27T13:19:00.001-07:00

A few of the pieces I've completed and put through numerous revisions are...

Help us St. Julien
If the toothfairy comes...
Arm Trouble
40 Pounds
We shall come rejoicing?
Now back to you...
The First Cup
Inevitable
On the proper response
Cause for Concern

A few I'm still working on (and subject matter)

Intergalactic Intervention (Cholesterol)
Strangely Attracted (Toupees)

A few I've pulled out and am revising

Changing of the guard
Malcontent
Piano Dwarf

Busy summer... good but busy. Desire to write back up and working for the moment.

1.5 years later....

2007-06-25T14:08:00.000-07:00

Ah, one way to throw everyone way off the trail is to not blog in one of the blogs you set up for a year and a half and then start posting stuff again... brilliant, really.

Okay... so I've been thinking about taking control of my poetry blog again because I'm now once more inspired enough to post with regularity. However, what is keeping me from it is the desire I have to surprise people when I do any sort of a slam. Decisions decisions.

Suffice it to say that I will be performing at a slam no later than July 20th at Kafe Kerouac here in Columbus. I say no later than, because perhaps I will be atttempting another night at some point between now and then. I've been out of the loop for quite some time, but it's about time I got back in.

Okay. Talk to you... um... soon?

Andy

Van Gogh's Other Ear

2005-11-30T06:21:00.000-08:00

Hello again from the far side of this semester at OSU. It has been a rough one, and one I'm not going to miss when it's gone. I'll try to post more often now, but I can't promise anything since I'm getting down to the end of my time here and have to worry about trying to get into a Doctorate program... blah blah blah. I know you're here for the poetry or whatever this is... so here goes.

Van Gogh’s Other Ear

You know, the one no one ever talks about, the one that was still intact. I figure it must have gotten pretty tired of all the attention given to the one that Van Gogh cut off in a fit of madness. “What’s the deal Vincent? Am I just not good enough to slice off? I’ve been robbed here, man!” (although most likely this was thought in French or Dutch or the language in which it chose to express irritation). Although some might consider the ear to be somewhat egotistical and unreasonable, consider that ears don’t often have a chance to be famous. I mean, if you were an ear looking for a break, your owner happened to have a disorder in which he chose to carve off a nice bit of cartilage, and you didn’t get the opportunity that was just dangling right in front of your nose (another bit of cartilage that might be a bitter), wouldn’t you have a few choice words to say?
In all honesty, if I put myself in the position of the shafted ear, I would be angrier with Van Gogh’s hands than with Van Gogh himself. I mean, the guy cut his own ear off! He probably didn’t have much control over his hands by that point. I suspect there was a deal between the now infamous ear and the hands that carved it off, hands that had long since achieved the fame and world renown most other minor body parts can only dream about and who were willing to share a bit of it with whatever appendage was willing to pay. I’ve got no clue what sorts of arrangements were made, but they were obviously satisfactory for both parties.
Perhaps the complete ear just didn’t pay up, and was mad because it got beat out by an ear who obviously had more resources and better organization. It knew that once one ear was gone it wouldn’t get another chance, because while one partially missing ear is an anomaly, two is not very unusual because it just screams “I’m trying way too hard to get attention.” In its final years, I’m sure it tried to rationalize the situation, saying that it was better off because it had all of its lobes and… that top part of the ear… and that it was better for hearing (which of course wasn’t as much up to it as up to the eardrum who stayed tucked away inside away from all the controversy). “At least I wasn’t born an eyebrow,” I’m sure it said in its golden years, which is true.
No one wants to be an eyebrow.

encounter

2005-10-07T12:07:00.000-07:00

just some random thoughts that came together for a poem... I don't know, it kinda makes sense, but it kinda scares me too. Here goes...

encounter

There’s just something about waking up
At 6am in a field
With a corn stalk in your back
A pile of manure at your head
And no idea what happened.

Not that it happens often,
At least not often enough to matter
Once or twice every few months
Adds up to about seven or eight times a year
Nothing I’d even write my senator about

I don’t even wonder what happened
Not anymore,
I just think
“Oh well, where am I now?”
Head towards the nearest road
walk along until I find a road sign
and then find a telephone to call in sick.

Once I ended up just outside Peoria, Iowa
Which is a looong way from Ohio.
This friendly trucker on his way to Cincinnati
Offered me a ride when he saw me on the shoulder.
He noticed the corn silk on my shirt
And the vacant, vaguely confused
But ultimately utterly resigned look on my face.
He said gruffly “Happened again, did it?
Don’t worry, we’ll get them someday.”
His eyes grew dark then, and I knew
He meant what he was saying.

I just didn’t know what he meant.

Office work

2005-09-26T09:49:00.000-07:00

A second offering of James Tate imitation. Enjoy!

Office Work

All of us were seated at our desks as usual. Jenny was busy taking a call. Mark was busy writing up the quarterly reports. Suddenly, the door to Mr. Johnson’s office burst open and a small man holding a pair of trousers ran out cackling maniacally. Mr. Johnson followed him, pantless, bellowing and waving his arms. The small man was running fast, and he had gotten a head start, but Mr. Johnson was gaining on him, puffing and red in the face. At the last possible moment, the dors to the office elevator slid open and the small man darted inside, leapt into the air, and pushed the “Close Doors” button. The doors slid shut on Mr. Johnson’s nose, and he was left standing there, red-faced, with his shirt hanging down over a pair of clean white boxer shorts. He turned around to face the office, which finally seemed to acknowledge his pantless, breathless state, clearly agitated. His mouth opened and closed as he tried to force words out. Then Mary, in a voice that was full of the good sense that most professional typists seem to be endowed with, said, “You should really stop hiring dwarves as office assistants, sir,” not even pausing to look up from her assignment. Mr. Johnson looked at her, eyes boggling with rage, but then his mouth snapped shut, he stomped back down to his office without a word, and slammed his door shut because he knew what we all knew. Mary was always right.

Have a great day!!

I mentioned james tate...

2005-09-23T11:49:00.000-07:00

If I recall correctly, I mentioned that I had been doing some work based on the prose poetry of one of my favorite poets, James Tate.

For my favorite poem at the moment "Young Man with a Ham" go here.

This is the one that started it all... the lunacy, the raving, the gratuitous cooking of vegetables.

I'm off to find one of my latest poems so that I can retranscribe it here... it's called "Office Work" and it has some of the following

-telephone calls
-a midget
-a boss who has had his pants stolen
-a wise secretary named Mary
-elevator doors that close on noses

It will be up for your viewing pleasure soon enough.

But for now... I must go.

Andy

Sincere Thanks

2005-09-21T16:05:00.000-07:00

Editor's note... I located my original file for the prose poem today, and opted to replace the one I originally posted with the one I originally intended to post.
I really appreciate the three sales I've had so far! It's a really cool deal to be able to say that you've written something that people have purchased.

I've taken to reading a lot of James Tate lately. I'll be posting one of my creations based on his work very soon... like right now.

"STONE GOOSE"

When I went out this morning to get the paper, I noticed that my stone goose with a sailor outfit had moved. Not that this was unusual, It moves all the time without my noticing it, probably just neighborhood children playing a prank. They never steal the goose because it must weigh one hundred pounds and that seems to be a lot to steal. Most mornings, when I emerge bleary eyed from my house, the goose has just moved a foot or two, but this morning was different. “Honk” said the goose. It was distinct. It couldn’t have come from anywhere other than the goose. I bent down to examine the once lifeless statue that had begun to honk at me from my own front porch. As I peered into its glassy eyes, an ear shattering boom came from the front yard, and I turned just in time to see my mailbox sailing into the distance. Then the laughter of the neighborhood children reached my ears, and I noticed the tape recorder hidden inside the goose’s sailor cap.

You have to admit. It was a darn good prank.

Okay... that's it

Talk to you all later

Andy

Book!

2005-08-31T10:20:00.000-07:00

editors note... I discovered that the shipping rates for the book are a bit pricey so I lowered the book price to try to make up for it... hope that helps a bit!

Okay, I did it. I found a really awesome site called lulu.com that publishes for "free" (i.e. they only make money if people order your book, you make 80% and they make 20%). I checked out lots of info on the site and the people and they are legit, nice, and most of all they really are in it for the benefit of the artist/musician/author/etc...

So here's the skinny

What: maybe this time...
What2: a collection of poetry that spans the last ten years of my life
where: lulu.com (in keywords type my name, ANdrew ANderson to get to my storefront)
how much: $7.00 print (I make about $1 per book after printing costs and commission)
$1.08 download (because they don't take a commission then!)
why: because I thought it was really cool and... why not... it's easier than getting rejection letters.
is it cool: yes. I have an author photo on the back (ha ha) and a sweet looking cover that I designed myself.

Go ahead and download the preview if you wish... most of the preview poetry is on this blog site though... You can download a PDF version for about $4.50 (they base that price off of the price I charge for the print version) but that sounds a bit steep to me.

Okay... if you dare... go ahead and get yourself one... I'll even sign it for you for free if I see you on a regular basis (how cheesy is that?)

Okay, shameless self promotion over.

Andy

My thoughts for the day

2005-08-23T15:06:00.000-07:00

I just sat down to the computer and thought about working
but then realized that mostly, when I'm at work, I'm just jerking

around doing little or nothing... checking e-mails shouldn't count
but I always convince myself they do because I spend such a significant amount

of time, checking e-mails you know, which although it's not part of the original work plan
Is much better than playing online games like scrabble or hang man

Because at least then I'm typing and communicating
instead of watching cartoons and simply vegetating

which eventually enables me to write rhymes and such
which I like very much

OH! You look at this poem as if it's just a waste of time!
You say "You should have been working on your paper instead of writing rhyme"

Well, I suppose that you should take a look at your own working habits
do they involve just working, or more often than not do they involve watching cartoons or drawing little pictures of rabbits.

(yes that was a really cheap rhyme I know
but I haven't eaten much today, and my brain is just a bit slow)

So calculate all the time that you spend doing, not work, but play
Go ahead we'll wait... when you're done put it down on paper, multiply your salary by the amount of time you've wasted (don't forget to calculate the amount of resources that you've used) and then take the time to realize that you've just wasted about 10 more minutes of your day.

Oh well... we're all human, and although to greater things we ought to have aspired
what you should aspire to right now is to minimize this page before your boss sees it and you get fired!

Ta ta!

Andy

Promises...

2005-07-07T15:14:00.000-07:00

I promise that I will write a new post soon... I've been reading some good books and that is normally a precursor to more poetry. I believe that literature and poetry (for some believe that poetry doesn't really qualify as literature) go hand in hand, inspiration provided by one produces the other which then provides inspiration for the other etc. I would like to research this train of thought a bit further... especially with those mini theater pieces by Tom Stoppard... one of my faves at the moment. Just finished up reading both "The importance of being Earnest" and "Travesties" one by Wilde, the other by Stoppard, both exceedingly witty and exceptionally brilliant works. I guess post modernism isn't that terrible after all... but then again I still have about 10 books to go... sigh...

Andy

"Reverse Dexterity" and "On Rumination and/or writing"

2005-06-28T13:26:00.000-07:00

Two slower poems, lacking the odd punch of the last poem posted, showing more of my melancholy artistic side. In short, I don't know why I'm posting these, but they were asking me to put them up. I had no choice. It was a poetic hostage situation.

Reverse Dexterity was written for a poetry class but also for Amanda. So I suppose it was written for Amanda using the cover of a Poetry Class. I don't write enough for her anymore. I should. I will.

On Rumination has an odd title, and odd words in it. For ease of use, and in order not to confuse those of you who don't often peruse dictionaries looking for odd words, I will define the three words I selected to be at the center of my work.

Homoousian - the characteristic of God the Father that says that he is one and the same and yet separated from God the Son.

Homopteran - of or belonging to the Cicada family.

Martensite - the resulting hard brittle metal that hot steel will become when immersed in cold water or otherwise cooled too quickly. It tends to be useless.

Happy reading!

reverse dexterity

I had a mirror on my desk
in which I used to practice
writing sentences backwards,
just so I would be able to bring up
reverse dexterity at parties.

I talked to myself then,
wondered aloud at the thought
of a first kiss. Decided it was
the soul at the speed of light;
electromagnetic innocence soaring in space,
until it breaks against beaches of stars.

One day the mirror itself broke.
I no longer remember how,
certainly not against beaches of stars,
but it did fracture perfectly.
The center, dusty silver, was surrounded
by hundreds of lives at different angles,
tinkling dizzily like the cocktail glasses
people’s hands write with, scribbling backwards
as the stars kiss at the speed of the soul.

on rumination and/or writing

Robert Frost’s typewriter
must have gone through
reams of snowy paper
and miles of inky ribbon.

I have no typewriter, no ribbon, but
my monitor screen goes on for miles,
or inches that seem like miles,
or just inches of tri-colored pixels.

Tri-colored like a TV screen,
like the one we had when I was young.
I’d spray the screen with the ironing water
or spit and watch, magnified, the pixels split.
They split. Tri colored. Three. Three. Three.
Down the screen, water ran. Three. Three. Three

tiles of different size repeating on a bathroom floor
always make for an interesting pee.
A pattern. A pattern. I’ll find it. It’s there.
I’ll cross my eyes. I close them. The tiles
dance. Outside, a homopterous buzz disturbs my squares,
my pattern-less tiles, and they flee into post-August air.
I ruminate blankly with no squares to turn in my head.
The cicada sings again. Sings again. And again and…

Or. And/or. I love the way that looks. Inclusive and
exclusive
at the same time. God the Father and/or God the son.
Homoousian, they are of the same nature.
Exclusive, they are not the same.
I’ll be a father and/or a son one day.
And? Or?

My poetry is martensitic. Hot steel
made for hammers will become brittle,
fissured, useless carbide of iron,
when immersed in cold water.
Martensite strength will shatter against
real steel unaltered. My molten against
Robert Frost. Frost. Cold.

Crack.

Andrew

Hooray, another poem... this time a biggie...

2005-06-08T12:45:00.000-07:00

I hesitate to put this poem down because it's very long and people will probably stop talking to me when they read it because it's weird. That said, now that I think about it I'm an odd guy myself and I suppose that it won't matter that much if I post something extremely odd on the web. Okay here goes...

This poem came from the aforementioned (like three weeks ago) poetry class. The theme was that we had to write a poem that detailed our own murder. The choices of how people chose to go out were pretty regular, mob hits, angry boyfriend or girlfriend, death in an alleyway, murder in a dream sequence. I of course chose angry robots.

Yes. Angry robots. They are out there. You've probably seen the SNL skits about the insurance that protects you in the case of a robot attack. This is kind of like that. Yep. Okay. Enjoy.

maybe this time…

The day the robots came to get me
I was trying to fix my sink.
It clogs when I put eggshells in the disposal,
gunks up the whole system,
a real mess you’d better believe.

My omelet was getting cold while I
banged away at a pipe with my wrench.
You’d think I’d get the message and stop
shoving eggshells in the disposal, but I always think,
maybe this time.

While I worked on the clog, the robots came in
through the front door, which I always leave unlocked
cause once I locked myself in and had to call the
fire department. I probably could have gone out the window,
but the firemen in our town always seem bored.
I thought they might be glad to get a call.

Locking the door wouldn’t have helped anyhow.
One robot had a circular saw blade on the end of his arm,
so he could have cut right through the wood.
I wouldn’t have even noticed the noise, since I was busy
yelling angrily into the sink, pummeling it with my wrench
shoving a broom handle into the drain.
I’m surprised none of my neighbors called the police
Or the fire department because of the racket.
It must have sounded like I was being abducted
by robots.

And soon I was! There were four of them
buzzing and whirring just like those cheap robots
you always see on badly made sci-fi films.
Had I noticed a few moments earlier, I could have
called for help, or at least tried to fend them off with
my wrench and my broom. They didn’t look very sturdy.

Regardless, before I could defend myself they knocked me down.
The robot with the circular saw blade cut my arms off,
and the others beeped and whizzed, for joy it seemed,
as they carried me towards the open front door.
I couldn’t call the fire department then, because I had no arms,
and you can’t make a phone call with no arms, you just can’t!
I was yelling and waving my useless stumps
spraying blood everywhere, making quite a racket
not so much out of pain or fear, but rather
because I had just installed new carpets.
Now there would be bloodstains all over!
If I’d have gotten stain resistant carpeting
I may have gone more quietly,
who knows?

I was carried outside, past the flower beds my
sprinkler system normally waters at 11:32 every morning.
That day I’d turned off the system because I wanted to
leave my car windows rolled down. My car seat had gotten
wet the last time I’d left the windows down and the sprinkler on.
If the robots had gotten wet, they might have
shorted out. I wondered what time it was, but since I
wear my watch on my wrist,
and my wrist happened to be lying on the kitchen floor
I couldn’t check.

A van pulled up when we got to the driveway,
black, like in the mafia movies, and I was tossed inside.
The van drove to the bridge just outside the city limits
and I was tossed over the rail into the river.
Since I had no arms, I couldn’t swim,
but I was almost out of blood anyway.
Most of it was on my carpets and in the van.

As I was drowning slowly, I wondered if the
future owners of my house would ever get the blood
out of the carpets or put eggshells
in the disposal thinking,
maybe this time…

andrew

Counting Thumb

2005-05-24T08:22:00.000-07:00

This poem has a completely different vibe to it. It is currently in the editing stage, a stage in which I stare at a poem and try to figure out what is wrong with it. At a certain point, I am forced to make it a read only file and put a password on the file that consists of numbers tapped randomly (in a sequence that I can do with my eyes shut so I can type the password the required two times). Over modification has killed more than one of my poems. Here goes.

counting thumb

My French office is on the second floor.
Second if you count like the French
with your thumb as one
starting on the second floor
saying it’s the first.

I’m there now. Or rather here.
Not there where you are, but here where I am
and you are not.
Unless I happen to have gone home
which makes this whole argument irrelevant.
Just like the French way of counting floors.

Second or third, there are still stairs involved
or an elevator I rarely use.

I guess I never liked elevators
especially in buildings with fewer than four floors.
Laws that require elevators seem cruel
Because in the event of a fire
when an elevator can’t be used.
how will the handicapped get down?

The problem could be solved if we learned to fly.
The handicapped would soar above their wheelchairs
and their canes
and our now useless elevators

Just imagine: in the event of a fire
we’d break the glass
then take a flying leap
to soar like sparks out the open window
past our second/third floors
above the distant wail of sirens.

In all honesty it does sound better to say:
My French office is on a floor above which
we would soar
if we could fly.

Gone Home

2005-05-20T13:10:00.000-07:00

This poem came about between Autumn 2003 and Winter of 2004. It was originally intended for my poetry class at Capital University, and got some good reactions from my prof and the other students. Since that moment, no one has understood it. Oh well, some poetry works for some people.

gone home?

I had a garden gnome in my garden,
because he was a garden gnome,
not a garage gnome or an attic gnome,
but a garden gnome.
He was “guardin’” the garden you could say,

or not say if you didn’t feel like it.
I guess it’s a personal choice.

You may believe all gnomes are equal,
But mine was made in China. I know.
He has it written on the bottom of his left foot.

Had it written… I should say. You see,
I had a garden gnome,
but not since he vanished from the corner,
the one with the carrots and cabbage,
where the rabbits gathered.

That is, if they do indeed “gather”
as if they actually plan something like that,

or, maybe they do.

I went out there once
and found only, “made in China,”
imprinted in the moist dirt,
and close to it, a hole.

Gnome sized,
or rather, rabbit sized.

I got a stick and stuck it in the hole.

It didn’t reach the bottom.

Of course it really wasn’t a big stick.

Funny.
For a moment,
I’d actually wondered:

Did he go back home?

What to expect

2005-05-20T13:01:00.000-07:00

Not too much. It goes without saying that this is a hidden file within a practically hidden blog, so you are probably the only one looking at this... ever...

However, if you do find this sort of thing amusing, do leave a note from time to time, or send me your suggestions. I'm always open for fun. Oh and one more thing that I must do if I'm to keep my sanity.

All materials on this site may someday appear in some sort of a book (if I get all my ducks lined up and my manuscript skills in gear) so all material is therefore mine (Copyright 2005 under the name Andrew W. Anderson) unless otherwise attributed.

I trust you, but I trust no one. It's part of my paranoid lifestyle.

Okay. Let's go.

Bard Anderson