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POET’S CORNER

“This is the first of my rose poems,” writes Jess, who is bravely publishing poetry from her teenage years. “I have pages and pages of rose poems. Crap about getting cut by thorns, petals wilting, etc. etc. You know, like, really original stuff. Anyway, I didn’t put initials next to this one so I can’t be certain who inspired it, but most of my ‘love is pain’ poems were about my first boyfriend Satan, so I’m assuming this one is as well. It’s untitled … ”

A fool will nurse a dying rose
Believing the beauty will stay
Religiously, the vase is filled
As the petals fade away

Such fools will salvage a dying love
As if they do not know
That when hearts do slowly wither
Then the love will cease to grow

So true. So very, very true. Here’s some of my own anguished teenage verse:

I know that it gets good mileage
And has a reliable motor
But why, in 1983,
Do we own a ‘74 Toyota?

I called that one Sisyphus’ Boulder in Our Garage. Another, from my 1978 beatnik phase:

microwave oven, hummm, hummm
irradiate my food
with your high technology
you are only slightly smaller than the fridge
hey, there’s some wine in here …

There are more, but they mostly deal with the trauma of early love, and feature the usual cliches: “You told me it was over between you and the science faculty”, “Child maintenance? What the hell is ‘child maintenance’?”, “She broke my heart and badly scratched my Supertramp records”, etc.

(Via Sheila O’Malley)

Posted by Tim B. on 03/19/2005 at 11:24 AM
  1. Twins! My father had a ‘74 Toyota in the early 80s too. With no a/c (that’s as in, none even built in). We took a trip all over the South in the middle of August in it—me, my dad, and my sister. The clutch burned out in the middle of South Carolina.

    Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 03 19 at 12:42 PM • permalink

  2. Thanks, I needed that! (...as he wipes the last of the tear-streaked exploded snot bubble from his cheek…)

    Posted by pkok on 2005 03 19 at 12:47 PM • permalink

  3. “There once was a man from Nantucket…”

    Posted by Drunk Fade on 2005 03 19 at 01:07 PM • permalink

  4. Arrgh.  Reminds me of the songs I wrote in my early twenties, all of which could be boiled down to “You don’t love me, you bitch! waaah!” I still have the tapes and plan to keep them as long as I have bullets for my pistol.

    Posted by BruceW on 2005 03 19 at 01:26 PM • permalink

  5. Teenage poems of love and engine maintenance, and fond memories of Dad’s old car.  What a day I’m having.

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2005 03 19 at 01:49 PM • permalink

  6. A blogger who often was stonkers
    Wrote poems that, though they were bonkers,
    Were thought to be heir
    Like the best of Austreir
    To oldies themed: “Old Blighty Conquers”

    Posted by The Sanity Inspector on 2005 03 19 at 02:21 PM • permalink

  7. Not just you, BruceW. I too cranked out the crappy versifying like there was no tomorrow (funny, that was the theme of most of the poems). I still have one incredibly long one I wrote about (who else) an ex. Lots of flowers in that one, too. The funny thing is that long after the event I discovered that he too had written a long, meandering song on the occasion of our breakup, which was also full of lame flower/water/withering imagery. Christ, we were a pair.

    Posted by Sonetka on 2005 03 19 at 04:27 PM • permalink

  8. ...bloody daffodils.

    Posted by guinsPen on 2005 03 19 at 04:46 PM • permalink

  9. Oh boo freaking hoo. Try entering dating age with your father selling a beautiful Chevrolet Impala (or as we called it “better than nothing”) for an olive green Dodge Dart with no 8 track tape drive, no tape deck, and yes, no radio.  Vinyl seats too.  Looked like a cereal box with wheels.  We called it “definitely worse than nothing”,

    My choice was either to get a job bagging groceries after school and buy a cool girl magnet car or write a bunch of stupid poems about it.  Which would definitely not get me laid.

    Of course, based on the number of dates my Monte Carlo got me, might as well had written the poems.

    Posted by wronwright on 2005 03 19 at 05:20 PM • permalink

  10. EARLY AUSTRALIAN BARDIC VERSE
    Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s Day:
    All hot and sweaty, with a lingering pong,
    Of dead kangaroo by the roadside long?

    Posted by blogstrop on 2005 03 19 at 07:21 PM • permalink

  11. bush the liar
    bush the demon
    its about lives for oil
    and nothing about freedom

    WARNING! PORTLAND MOONDOPES!

    Posted by guinsPen on 2005 03 19 at 09:05 PM • permalink

  12. Wronwright, some women are impressed by fellows who write.

    Although if it’s not about cars or footy most of the ladies think a bloke’s a poof, which wouldn’t get a man laid at all.

    However…

    Posted by Major Anya on 2005 03 20 at 02:17 AM • permalink

  13. Actually I like that turn where the poem says “...Religiously the vase is filled…

    Posted by ForNow on 2005 03 20 at 02:35 AM • permalink

  14. Johnny-DREADNOUGHT Heard has just posted some angsty poetry on his blog. Not that I’m saying you should go there, or anything. But, you know…

    Posted by TimT on 2005 03 20 at 04:16 AM • permalink

  15. Although if it’s not about cars or footy most of the ladies think a bloke’s a poof, which wouldn’t get a man laid at all.

    I take it you’ve never heard heard of handbags pretending to be gay until they get into a compromising situation, then prodding their girlfriends with Mr Tiny saying they’d like to experiment to see what they’ve been missing out on. See also male feminists.

    Posted by Jim Geones on 2005 03 20 at 07:01 AM • permalink

  16. I am truly a poet
    It’s just that nobody knows it

    Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 03 20 at 09:11 AM • permalink

  17. Religiously the vase is filled?
    The vase is filled religiously?
    The vase is religiously filled?
    The vase religiously is filled?
    Religiously is filled the vase?
    Filled is the vase religiously?
    Filled religiously is the vase?


    Dare we have a contest of the worst poetry we ever wrote as teenagers?

    I confess to writing the following, a looooong time ago. It is the climax of a great epic. It meant something but i’ve foirgotten what:

    Castle, island or star, the impotent wind
    washes the cell-sealed tombs.
    Where the apes in their happiness vilely sinned
    We play our phallic bagpipes in locked rooms.

    Posted by Susan Norton on 2005 03 20 at 11:15 AM • permalink

  18. wronwright — Shoulda gone for the Gremlin or the Pacer.  Might have got a sympathy lay.

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 03 20 at 12:12 PM • permalink

  19. Jeez, don’t freak out about the unoptimizable meter, I just liked the image of the person doing such things under such circumstances. Kee-rist, you’d think I’d compared her with Lorine Niedecker.

    Posted by ForNow on 2005 03 20 at 04:25 PM • permalink

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