[Don Jones]

Domestic Patter

I am the very essence of a post-Mod bourgeois bachelor
Without a mate to help me do the laundry in particular.
I quote domestic treatises and matters metro-sexual
From Martha Stewart’s latest book to shopping recreational.

My pains to make risotto has some say I’m homosexual
And what about the time they saw me folding napkins triangle?
I use the latest products and I save each junk-mail catalogue
For Teflon apparati to the latest cleaning analogue.

For Teflon apparati to the latest cleaning analogue.
For Teflon apparati to the latest cleaning analogue.
For Teflon apparati to the latest cleaning analogue.

[Don Jones]

**********************

[Gail White]

Love the gerbils, Jayn.

Another one:

GOLDSMITH ON LIGHT BULBS

When lovely woman notes with sorrow
The highest light bulb in the room
Is blown and can't be reached, what morrow
Will cast new light upon her gloom?

The only art to make her gladder
Is woman's all-too-easy one.
She'll con some guy to fetch a ladder,
And in a wink, the job is done.

[Marion Shore]

Mom's Ravin'

Once upon a summer morning as I woke up, stretching, yawning,
gazing at the bright day dawning, heedless of what fears might loom,
while I dug through piles of crap for T-shirt, shorts and baseball cap,
suddenly I heard a rap come thundering like the clap of doom.
"'Tis some friend," I muttered, though it chilled me like the clap of doom.
Quoth my mother: "Clean your room."

"Mom!" said I, "no need to holler or get hot beneath the collar;
if I choose to live in squalor, that's my privilege, I presume."
Vainly seeking then to borrow time I cried in tones of sorrow:
"Mom I promise on the morrow, I'll take up the mop and broom!
Yea, I promise on the morrow, I shall ply both mop and broom!"
Quoth my mother: "Clean your room."

Edgar Allan Poe at age 11

[Petra Norr]

Don,
You asked about a contest for intentionally bad poetry. John once started a thread about a contest like that. You'll find the name of the contest here -- I think it's an annual one, but you'll have to google to find out more:
http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=6991

[Jayne Osborn]

Marion,
That's brilliant. I do know this one, but can't for the life of me remember what it's called or who it's by. No wonder Lucy asked us to specify the original! There are SO many poems and SO many poets - my poor brain is nearly full and I can't store all this info without deleting some. Now... where the hell did I put my cup of coffee?

[Marion Shore]

Jayne,
It's Poe's "The Raven". One of the greatest poems in the English language, IMO, but just begging to be parodied!

[Roger Slater]

(My father moved through dooms of love, by E. E. Cummings --http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15405)


my mother moved through dooms of dust
through grimes of gag through fogs of ash,
scrubbing the damage off linen or wool
my mother moved through shines of dull

this vaguely unforgotten there
turned at her toil to spotless here;
that if (so torrid suds are warm)
under her eyes dust lost its form

newly as from indelible which
motes would burst beneath her touch
drove the mold from dinner plates
woke brutish germs to ghostly roots

and nothing quite so least as cloth
-- I say though dirt were why men breathe--
because my mother lived her brush
love was the whole but not enough

[Jayne Osborn]

Marion,
Doh! Of course. Thanks for assisting my overloaded brain.

Lucy is going to have one helluva hard job judging this one, IMO. Will the lucky winners be the ones who hit on her personal favourite poems to parody? Or will she be blown away by the skill of some of the entries even if she's not overly familiar with the original? A difficult call, either way.

[Gail White]

I think the ultimate bad poetry contest is the Wergle Flomp (just google it).

On the subject of cleaning up after pets, here's another:

(Coleridge)

It is an Ancient Mariner
lives on the beach alone,
and those who pass his hut by night
may hear his doleful moan.

“Since my last voyage I've settled here
amid the sand and rocks.
I keep three cats, and every night
I change their litter box.

“The litter's here, the litter's there,
it lies on every hand.
And soon my feet will tread, I fear,
more cat litter than sand.

“I thought I'd find new peace of mind,
far from the haunts of men.
But I'd rather floss an albatross
than keep three cats again.”