Counting to Infinity

Don't let the joy of
beginning diminish
simply because you
will never quite finish.

Although it may be
a gigantic amount,
don't waste time complaining!
Get started and count!

I must say, Susan, that I have never come across a poem about extruded food. Which must mean you have a winner.

The titles keep coming but not the poems to go with them; I hope they amuse here.
Your Oblong Face
Epitaph for the Agricultural Wages Board
Unhand Yourselves, Onanists!

The real difficulty of the challenge is that the more bizarre or seemingly uninviting a title sounds, the more interesting it is. It's sort of like naming a rock band.

Roger, I liked your Counting to Infinity - but isn't that rather a good title? Either way, it is something I remember trying, idiotically, to do when a child.

Yes. The rude ones especially. 'Arsehole' was the first poem I turned to in that Craig Raine collection. But maybe that's just me.
The ones that say the poems are useless are also intriguing..,
I'm thinking about the titles that send a shudder down any editor's spine when they appear in the inbox:

The War-Song of my Heroic Lingam
Hitler's Spawn Lives in Downing Street
Buffy in Twilight-World
Poets! Rise against the Zionist Conspiracy!
I Dream of Jesus, and he Speaks through Me
A Selection of Unrhymed Limericks
Listen, Crass People of Worksop, for I am the Bard

I don't think I can write poems to fit any of those, so anyone else is welcome to them.
At the moment I'm working on 'Mournful Reflections at Penge Crematorium.'

The Withered Pap
 

The Withered Pap

A stingy mother
and spineless father?

A mentor’s mind
no longer kind?

A church’s words
now fossil turds?

A government
a circus tent?

A wiki on all
accuracy small?

A muse once trusted
no longer busted?

And those who trusted
also busted.

The Long-term Hazards of Bat Excrement
 

The Long-term Hazards of Bat Excrement

Twinkle, Twinkle, little bat,
A grotto’s where your sleeping at.
All day, while hanging by your feet,
You’ve bowel habits, indiscreet.

You know, you’re not the only one
Who lets this flow of feces run;
Ten thousand bats comprise your troop,
And every one’s condemned to poop.

Enumeration of these turds
Is way beyond this poet’s words;
But crapping in your habitat
Is filling up your lair with scat.

Your population’s facing doom;
You’re running out of sleeping room.
This situation’s gotten grave -
You’ll have to find another cave.

Read This Poem If You're Being Punished

I don't know what you did, what sin
you're expiating for,
but I conclude it must have been
a doozy, that's for sure!

Had your offense been slight or small
you would have got a sentence
of reading Bill McGonagall
to demonstrate repentance,

but since you're being made to read
these words then it must mean
you must have made somebody bleed
or spat upon the queen

or photographed Kate Middleton
undressed or in the raw.
It's cruel, but you must purge your sin
and read this. It's the law!

What Roger says about rock band names seems especially apt. I'm also thinking of all the American microbreweries that give their beers outré names with an off-putting edge. If there's not currently a Rhino Sweat pale ale on the market, I expect there will be soon. Lots of hot sauce manufacturers go for dare-you-to-eat-it names like "Inferno" and "Satan's Anus," and we've all seen extreme amusement park rides named to sound like death threats or torture equipment. In all of those cases, the name is deliberately bad, or ironic in some way, and the intended audience is in on the joke. But if I get the drift of this comp, we're supposed to go a different way. We're supposed to imagine a poet who isn't in on the joke, someone with a McGonagall-esque degree of cluelessness who has no idea how bad the title (and the poem) is.

People have weighed in here with lots of potential ways to skin this cat. (Hmm, is there a title in that phrase, maybe?) Poems about bodily orifices and effluvia, earnest praise of something that merits a pan more than a paean, popular press headlines repurposed as poem titles. Any of those could be the key to success.

Like Adrian, I've had fun coming up with ghastly titles that so far have mostly defied me to write the accompanying poem: "There's No Jam Like Toe Jam," "Fungal Infection Be Not Proud," "Another Foreskin on the Doormat," "So Many Girls, So Few Handcuffs," "Pint of Blood, Side of Guacamole." I do have some hope for "I Taste Better Than I Smell," a love poem in which an ardent suitor likens himself to stinky cheese and urges the object of his affection to try some. Or I could try a poem addressed to my fellow competitors: "May You Totally Suck, and May I Be Even Worse."

Chris, your post is a joy.

From Verrucaria Maura to Parmelia Saxatilis

"someone with a McGonagall-esque degree of cluelessness..."

Chris,

This would explain the names of countless American beauty parlors and hair styling salons.

But, perhaps there is a chance for traditional Junior High School bad taste;

Boogersnot Sandwich

A “natural-living” neurotic
Deplored any foodstuffs sucrotic;
“I would rather eat boogers
Than ingest any sugars!”
(By the way, she was far from erotic.)

The Non-Universality of E.U. Common Fisheries Policies

Their land-locked locations mean Slovaks and Czechs
Can avoid turgid papers on gurnard and trawls
Or long bitter wrangles re buoying of wrecks
Laced with mind-numbing reams of marine Euro-balls.

One Hundred Is More Than A Hundred-and-One
 

One hundred came after a hundred-and-one:
As a child I was sure of this fact.
My counting there erred, although truly begun;
It seemed odd how my Dad would react.

I’d count up this way, proud, intent, having fun:
“…Ninety-eight, ninety-nine,” (NOT One Hundred,
The next I’d recite, but) “a Hundred-and-one,”
(I didn’t perceive I had blundered),

Inordinately, I’d “a Hundred!” continue
(Misplaced by one space – just a titch!)
And follow thereafter “A Hundred-and-two...”
- At which my dear Father would twitch.

It seemed quite self-evident, every time:
The numbers fell into that sequence, see?
They tripped off my tongue in a rhythm sublime!
Poor Pa glazed at this rote’s nightly frequency.

(A true story! And a question: should I ditch the capitals on numerals - wherever they are not standard - or do those contribute to the flavour?)

Considering Belly Button Lint

Umbilical cords, when they're snipped,
Can leave behind bellies equipped
With a space, if you squint,
Where you can see lint,
Though it's otherwise quite nondescript.

Hair Today
 

A Hairy End

Tweezing the hair from my imposing nose,
I know where the hair from my head now grows.

Trimming my chin hair, now turned yellow,
I see that I am a ripening fellow.

Clipping my crotch hair, lank and grizzled,
I grasp that libido has finally fizzled!

Thinning my brows, the chicks I eye
Hold up a sign: Geezers Need Not Apply!

Another version of a title I used above. I think it's a children's poem.


COUNTING TO INFINITY

Counting to infinity
is difficult to do
since every time you reach the point
when you believe you're through

the final number that you think
must mean you now are done
can be a higher number if
you add the words "and one."

So listen to my wise advice:
I tell you that it's better a
plan to simply count to ten
and then to say et cetera.

If you can count from one up to infinity,
Though friends may think you’re crazy as they chortle,
You’ll still be counting when they’re in the cemetary,
And - which is more, my son - you’ll be immortal.

Yeah, Roger. Good poem and good title. That's the crux of it.

I'm afraid I will squander any last particle of respect that might attend my name with the posting of what follows:


Which Came First, Diarrhea or Hemorrhoids?

Philosophers have long enjoyed
Discussing one idea:
Which came first, the hemorrhoid?
Or was it diarrhea?

It's fascinating, isn't it?
Put on your thinking cap.
We're grappling with some heavy shit,
This existential crap.

Love it, Roger, love it.

(Another messy poem, I'm afraid!
At least there are some gems in it, though not mine.)


. MU.D.. IS A.NOUN…

the books lay there – ah, S.EEPING MU.D..!
THE MU.D.. ON THE .INK., I say;
I want to try – I wish I could -
rescue THE BO.Y IN THE ..B.A.Y!

MU.D.. I. M..OP…M.A! ah, MU.D.. .S EAS.;
W.. .ID.. ..E. .S. E.A.S? THE MU.D.. AT THE ……CAGE,
plus MU.D.. ON THE OR.E.. ..PRESS;
mud afflicts each titled page:

her novels, that brought wealth and fame
(Poirot and Marple found
success greater than Tuppence!)
now lie soiled upon the ground;

….. IN THE CLO.DS my bookshelf’s fettered!
all the titles? dank and smeared –
END..S. NIGH.! flood’s left some letters
legible; rest disappeared.


(Just ask if you want to know. ;) We actually do have the titles on our bookshelf, thanks to my wife ordering them as a collection.)

Puke Pooped or Poop Puked?

Puke pooped or poop puked -
which one smells badder?
I tested, and I'll be fooked,
if it ain't the latter.

Village Smellage
 

Fetid Odour or Picking up the Local Atmosphere

In the village there’s a smellage:
There’s a spillage, I can tellage,
Of some sewage or some silage;
It’s been phewage for a whileage:
Whiff, I allege, of rank spoilage -
Will some swillage cleanse this soilage?
Who will rummage through the message?
Will a scrummage make it lessage -
Many willage hands make lightage
Pong that our village has blightage?
But untillage it’s rinsed clearage
I’m unwillage to go nearage!


(OK... 'scraping the bottom of the barrel'.)

What the Fucus?
 

The seaweed called fucus
Rhymes only with mucous;
You'll set off a ruckus
Pronouncing it fuckus.

Substantive Modifications

My love is pulchritudinous, proportionate and glamorous.
She’s captivating, fascinating, feminine and amorous.
She’s scintillating, titillating, precious, paradisical,
Luxurious, voluptuous, delectable and physical.

She’s charming, cosmopolitan, sophisticated, thoroughbred
Splendiferous, magniloquent, illustrious and go-ahead.
She’s entertaining, debonair, delightful, indispensable,
Judicious, level-headed, sage, intelligent and sensible.

A loveless life is listless, luckless, feckless, sick and festering,
Malodorous, morbiferous, mephitical and westering,
Dysfunctional, detestable, destructive, deleterious,
Inadequate, impractical, unworthy and unserious.

All poets of a principled and passionate sincerity
Find well-selected adjectives contribute to their verity.
Ingenious deployments are sublime and unforgettable.
A Hemingway of verse would be obnoxious and regrettable!

John,
Very good. It sounds like the style of W.S. Gilbert, with a touch of Cole Porter.

Far too good a tribute to W. S. G. to qualify as duff in any way, John! It's impossible to resist trying to sing it.

John, for a man with such a limited vocabulary, that's terrific!

I am the very model of a modern Major-general. Sheer pastiche.

I floss my nostrils daily
 

Fine work, John, whether as pastiche or not!


I floss my nostrils daily with a toothpick and some thread
I’ve spun from a year’s-worth of navel-lint;
I keep a Christmas bauble in that socket in my head
My glass eye fell from: My, but it does glint!
I shave with a veg-peeler then I peel veg with the same -
For two such tools would be a shame and waste;
I wear the clothes I sleep in, which I found dumped in a skip.
I eat raw silt; it has an earthy taste.
I never use a lighter – shove my ciggies in the fire
Held between my toes: it makes my tootsies brown
While igniting the nicotine (I often smoke a pair
At once, so as to keep the effort down.)
I leave cats in my dentist’s waiting room to run about
(Boy, you should hear folks shriek at all their play!)
Then trundle home in someone else’s car I’ve just picked out;
All this outlines my average fun-filled day.

OLD NUMBER 7 Positively Cures Gonorrhea, Gleet, and Mucous Discharges From the Urethra

( Label inscription on a bottle of a 1920’s quack gonorrhea cure )

Disciple of raw egg and oyster,
You made seduction your career.
With rich old broads, you’d romp and roister
Until you caught the gonorrhea.

Your life seemed happy, short, and sweet;
But now it’s dismal, tough, and long -
Since your affliction with the gleet
Made mucous dribble from your schlong.

In retrospect, a virgin blonde
You should have sought; so you could marry her.
What used to be your magic wand
Is now your wizened water carrier.

You’ve burned the bridge that leads to Heaven.
Though Hell awaits, remember this;
You’ll always have Old Number Seven
To quench the burning when you piss.