I was going to post my cringe-inducing "desertification" poem that I wrote when I was 18 -- no punctuation, all lowercase, random line breaks, pretentiously dark and pseudo-existential -- if I'd read it at an open mike I undoubtedly would have worn all black -- but I think the point here is to truly humiliate ourselves for the amusement of others, right? So, given that it's not really that embarrassing to have written an awful poem at age 18, I've decided--as a penance of sorts--to submit the sonnet I wrote *last night*. I think what makes it worse than my teenage efforts is the way it's dressed up just enough to be pretentious, but there's no disguising the fact that it's teenybopperesque sludge written by someone old enough to know better.

After this I may change my login name.


In the basement, where they can't be found,
my bones are stacked against the wall
like firewood. Parts are strewn around,
disjointed by the animal
who gnaws my limbs. He's finicky,
rejecting pieces that he deems
too tough or fatty. Smeared with sticky
blood, his canines rip fresh seams
in organs sorted on the floor.
He sniffs and rolls them with his nose,
tests with a timid tongue before
he wolfs them down--then off he goes,
leaving the scraps, to have a drink,
the untouched heart still clean and pink.


Now I ask you -- who is the speaker here? A head in a jar of brine? L10 is unintentionally funny--and the whole "tearing me apart and scorning my poor lil heart" metaphor -- ugh! what the **** was I thinking? Shoot me now! The fact that it's in reasonably correct sonnet form, IMO, only makes it that much worse, because it shows I put more effort into it than it deserved.


[This message has been edited by RosaRugosa (edited December 20, 2002).]