A Trilobite Haiku

Graceful Trilobite

denizen of ancient seas

Only stones remain

If you can create a worse haiku on the subject of trilobites I would love to see them!

Well Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without a bit of bad poetry!

THE CHRISTMAS GOOSE
by William McGonagall

Mr. SMIGGS was a gentleman,
And he lived in London town;
His wife she was a good kind soul,
And seldom known to frown.

'Twas on Christmas eve,
And Smiggs and his wife lay cosy in bed,
When the thought of buying a goose
Came into his head.

So the next morning,
Just as the sun rose,
He jump'd out of bed,
And he donn'd his clothes,

Saying, "Peggy, my dear.
You need not frown,
For I'll buy you the best goose
In all London town."

So away to the poultry shop he goes,
And bought the goose, as he did propose,
And for it he paid one crown,
The finest, he thought, in London town.

When Smiggs bought the goose
He suspected no harm,
But a naughty boy stole it
From under his arm.

Then Smiggs he cried, "Stop, thief!
Come back with my goose!"
But the naughty boy laugh'd at him,
And gave him much abuse.

But a policeman captur'd the naughty boy,
And gave the goose to Smiggs,
And said he was greatly bother'd
By a set of juvenile prigs.

So the naughty boy was put in prison
For stealing the goose.,
And got ten days' confinement
Before he got loose.

So Smiggs ran home to his dear Peggy,
Saying, "Hurry, and get this fat goose ready,
That I have bought for one crown;
So, my darling, you need not frown."

"Dear Mr Smiggs, I will not frown:
I'm sure 'tis cheap for one crown,
Especially at Christmas time --
Oh! Mr Smiggs, it's really fine."

"Peggy. it is Christmas time,
So let us drive dull care away,
For we have got a Christmas goose,
So cook it well, I pray.

"No matter how the poor are clothed,
Or if they starve at home,
We'll drink our wine, and eat our goose,
Aye, and pick it to the bone."

Fertile Lands and Mammoth Cheese

It's been a while shince I've posted some bad poetry. So here's a but of James McIntyre, Canada's bard of cheese. Enjoy!

Fertile Lands and Mammoth Cheese

In barren district you may meet
Small fertile spot doth grow fine wheat,
There you may find the choicest fruits,
And great, round, smooth and solid roots.

But in conditions such as these
You cannot make a mammoth cheese,
Which will weigh eight thousand pounds,
But where large fertile farms abounds.

Big cheese is synonymous name,
With the fertile district of the Thame,
Here dairy system's understood,
And they are made both large and good.

A turgid offering from Alfred Austin

Enjoy a bit of turgid poetry from Alfred Austin, perhaps the worst Poet Laureate of all time (and boy was he up against some stiff opposition!)

Henry Bartle Edward Frere

Bend down and read—the birth, the death, the name.
Born in the year that Waterloo was won,
And died in this, whose days are not yet run,
But which, because a year conceived in shame,
No noble need will christen or will claim.
And yet this dead man, England, was Thy son,
And at his grave we ask what had he done,
Bred to be famous, to be foiled of Fame.
Be the reply his epitaph: That he,
In years as youth, the unyielding spirit bore
He got from Thee, but Thou hast got no more;
And that it is a bane and bar to be
A child of Thine, now the adventurous sea
All vainly beckons to a shrinking shore.

Therefore, great soul, within your marble bed
Sleep sound, nor hear the useless tears we weep.
Why should you wake, when England is asleep,
Or care to live, since England now is dead?
Forbidden are the steeps where Glory led;
No more from furrowed danger of the deep
We harvest greatness; to our hearths we creep,
Count and recount our coin, and nurse our dread.
The sophist's craft hath grown a prosperous trade,
And womanish Tribunes hush the manly drum:
The very fear of Empire strikes us numb,
Fumbling with pens, who brandished once the blade.
Therefore, great soul, sleep sound where you are laid,
Blest in being deaf when Honour now is dumb

The Tay Bridge Disaster

A prime chunk of William Topaz - perhaps McG at his finest!

A bit more James McIntyyre - Hints to cheesemakers in poetry form!

Hints to Cheese Makers

Addressed to Jonathan Wingle, Esq.


All those who quality do prize
Must study color, taste and size
And keep their dishes clean and sweet,
And all things round their factories neat,
For dairymen insist that these
Are all important points in cheese.

Grant has here a famous work
Devoted to the cause of pork.
For dairymen find that it doth pay
To fatten pigs upon the whey,
For there is money raising grease
As well as in the making cheese.

And now the ridiculous or should that just be dreadful

WErik Satie said "The musician is perhaps the most modest of animals, but he is also the proudest. It is he who invented the sublime art of ruining poetry". Erik is perhaps wrong. Many poets have shown they had that art in spades, including Georgina Bailey Parrington:


AN ELEGY TO A DISSECTED PUPPY

Sweet Dog! now cold and stiff in death,
What cruel hand enticed thee here?
Did toothsome crust of juicy bone
Allure to stretch on thy bier?

... ruthless hands of alien race
Are opening up thy quiet breast,
With prying eyes they peer within,
Explore the contents of thy chest.


I will admit that I have greater access to atrocious verse since the not-wife gave me a copy of Very Bad Poetry by Katherine and Ross Petras. It is a must-have book!

Is this the worst poem ever written?

WW Follows


I've posted some wonderfully awful poetry on the Poor Mouth. Most of it is gloriously bad (Dear William Topaz McG, for example) or risible (The idiotic fawning of DPRK groupies such as Dermot Hudson) but this is truly, truly dreadful.

This was written by Theophile Marzials in 1874. Enjoy!


A Tragedy

Death!
Plop.
The barges down in the river flop.
Flop, plop.
Above, beneath.
From the slimy branches the grey drips drop,
As they scraggle black on the thin grey sky,
Where the black cloud rack-hackles drizzle and fly
To the oozy waters, that lounge and flop
On the black scrag piles, where the loose cords plop,
As the raw wind whines in the thin tree-top.
Plop, plop.
And scudding by
The boatmen call out hoy! and hey!
All is running water and sky,
And my head shrieks – "Stop,"
And my heart shrieks – "Die."
My thought is running out of my head;
My love is running out of my heart,
My soul runs after, and leaves me as dead,
For my life runs after to catch them -- and fled
They all are every one! – and I stand, and start,
At the water that oozes up, plop and plop,
On the barges that flop
And dizzy me dead.I might reel and drop.
Plop.
Dead.
And the shrill wind whines in the thin tree-top
Flop, plop.
A curse on him.
Ugh! yet I knew – I knew --
If a woman is false can a friend be true?
It was only a lie from beginning to end --
My Devil – My "Friend"
I had trusted the whole of my living to!
Ugh; and I knew!
Ugh!
So what do I care,
And my head is empty as air --
I can do,
I can dare,
(Plop, plop
The barges flop
Drip drop.)
I can dare! I can dare!
And let myself all run away with my head
And stop.
Drop.
Dead.
Plop, flop.

Gah I need to lie down now!

James McIntyre - Canada's poet laureate of Cheese

PHOTO HUNT FOLLOWS

When it comes to bad poetry, Willam Topaz McGonagall is arguably the king. However it does not mean that he is not without challengers. One of the prime contenders must be James McIntyre.

Born in Forres, Scotland in 1828 McIntyre moved to Canada at the age of 14, settling first in St Catherines and later Ingersoll, Ontario. Ingersoll which was then the heart of the Canadian dairy country. It was Ingersoll's major industry that inspired McIntyre to write poetry, including this masterpiece which was written to celebrate a 7,000lb cheese produced 1866:

ODE ON THE MAMMOTH CHEESE

We have seen the Queen of cheese,
Laying quietly at your ease,
Gently fanned by evening breeze --
Thy fair form no flies dare seize.

All gaily dressed soon you'll go
To the great Provincial Show,
To be admired by many a beau
In the city of Toronto.

Cows numerous as a swarm of bees --
Or as the leaves upon the trees --
It did require to make thee please,
And stand unrivalled Queen of Cheese.

May you not receive a scar as
We have heard that Mr. Harris
Intends to send you off as far as
The great World's show at Paris.

Of the youth -- beware of these --
For some of them might rudely squeeze
And bite your cheek; then songs or glees
We could not sing o' Queen of Cheese.

We'rt thou suspended from baloon,
You'd cast a shade, even at noon;
Folks would think it was the moon
About to fall and crush them soon


McIntyre was a well loved member of the Ingersoll community. His poetry continues to be celebrated to this day in the form of an annnual poetry contest. It is not too late to submit entries for the 2008 contest if you feel so inspired. The closing date is 9 October.

So Bin Laden’s - a piece of sewage and a poet to boot

It is well known that the war criminal Radovan Karadzic found time to pen poetry when not presiding over the slaughter of Bosniaks. Well poetry is a generous description for the crap he produced. Here is an example:

Sarajevo

I hear the misfortune threads
Turned into a beetle as if an old singer
Is crushed by the silence and turned into a voice.

The town burns like a piece of incense
In the smoke rumbles our consciousness.
Empty suits slide down the town.
Red is the stone that dies, built into a house. The Plague!

Calm. The army of armed poplar tree
Marches up the hill, within itself.
The aggressor air storms our souls
and once you are human and then you are an air creature.

I know that all of these are the preparations of the scream:
What does the black metal in the garage have for us?
Look how fear turned into a spider
Looking for the answer at his computer.

BBC translator said his poems were as "bad in the original as they sound in the English translation"

If that was not bad enough the Times poetry reports that Osama Bin Laden is to be published next week by an Oxford-educated academic, who discovered that he had once been in great demand as an after-dinner speaker.

Bin Laden’s recitals at wedding banquets and other feasts during the 1990s were recorded on tapes recovered from his compound in Afghanistan in 2001. They have been studied by Professor Flagg Miller, who teaches Arabic poetry at the University of California, Davis. He said: “Bin Laden is a skilled poet with clever rhymes and meters, which was one reason why many people taped him and passed recordings around, like pop songs.”

“They reveal Osama Bin Laden as the performer, the entertainer with an agenda,” Miller said. “He told gory tales of dead mujaheddin from the villages where he was speaking, which was often the first time their families had learned of their fates. He mixed this news up with radical theology and his own verse based on the traditions of hamasa - a warlike poetic tradition from Oman calculated to capture the interest of young men.” Miller said Bin Laden was calculating. “He crafts his words to excite the urban dissatisfied youth, offering them escape from their elders and villages. Instead, many just die in terrible ways.”

Other Arabic specialists are unhappy that the tapes have come to light. “They seem adolescent and brutal, like a video nasty, composed with minimal skill to win over the susceptible mind of the young and bloodthirsty male,” said one academic, who did not want to be named.“Whatever else Bin Laden is, he is now exposed as a disgrace to two millennia of Arabic culture.”

Here is an example of his work.

Tomorrow, William, you will discover which young man [will] confront your brethren, who have been deceived by [their own] leaders.

A youth, who plunged into the smoke of war, smiling

He hunches forth, staining the blades of lances red

May God not let my eye stray from the most eminent

Humans, should they fall, Djinn, should they ride

[And] lions of the jungle, whose only fangs

[Are their] lances and short Indian swords

As the stallion bears my witness that I hold them back

[My] stabbing is like the cinders of fire that explode into flame

On the day of the stallions’ expulsion, how the war-cries attest to me

As do stabbing, striking, pens, and books.

In my view it is ugly and brutal fare. I would not offer up a line of verse by Farrokhzad for the complete works of this evil man. That said I’m sure there will be a few who will appreciate this crap. I can just picture a certain ersatz Mexican getting an orgasm over it though.

Alcohol: the Demon Drink or the Workman’s Friend?

As I have mentioned in previous posts I receive a daily helping of William Topaz McGonagall, courtesy of McGonagall Online. Today’s offering is a plea for temperance, written, of course in William Topaz’s inimitable (or should that be excruciating ?)

A NEW TEMPERANCE POEM, IN MEMORY OF MY DEPARTED PARENTS, WHO WERE SOBER LIVING & GOD FEARING PEOPLE

My parents were sober living, and often did pray
For their family to abstain from intoxicating drink alway;
Because they knew it would lead them astray
Which no God fearing man will dare to gainsay.

Some people do say that God made strong drink,
But he is not so cruel I think;
To lay a stumbling block in his children's way,
And then punish them for going astray.

No! God has more love for his children, than mere man.
To make strong drink their souls to damn;
His love is more boundless than mere man's by far,
And to say not it would be an unequal par.

A man that truly loves his family wont allow them to drink,
Because he knows seldom about God they will think,
Besides he knows it will destroy their intellect,
And cause them to hold their parents in disrespect.

Strong drink makes the people commit all sorts of evil,
And must have been made by the Devil
For to make them quarrel, murder, steal, and fight,
And prevent them from doing what is right.

The Devil delights in leading the people astray,
So that he may fill his kingdom with them without delay;
It is the greatest pleasure he can really find,
To be the enemy of all mankind.

The Devil delights in breeding family strife,
Especially betwixt man and wife;
And if the husband comes home drunk at night,
He laughs and crys, ha! ha! what a beautiful sight.

And if the husband asks his supper when he comes in,
The poor wife must instantly find it for him;
And if she cannot find it, he will curse and frown,
And very likely knock his loving wife down.

Then the children will scream aloud,
And the Devil no doubt will feel very proud,
If he can get the children to leave their own fireside,
And to tell their drunken father, they won't with him reside.

Strong drink will cause the gambler to rob and kill his brother,
Aye! also his father and his mother,
All for the sake of getting money to gamble,
Likewise to drink, cheat, and wrangle.

And when the burglar wants to do his work very handy,
He plies himself with a glass of Whisky, Rum, or Brandy,
To give himself courage to rob and kill,
And innocent people's blood to spill.

Whereas if he couldn't get Whisky, Rum, or Brandy,
He wouldn't do his work so handy;
Therefore, in that respect let strong drink be abolished in time,
And that will cause a great decrease in crime.

Therefore, for this sufficient reason remove it from society,
For seldom burglary is committed in a state of sobriety;
And I earnestly entreat ye all to join with heart and hand,
And to help to chase away the Demon drink from bonnie Scotland.

I beseech ye all to kneel down and pray,
And implore God to take it away;
Then this world would be a heaven, whereas it is a hell,
And the people would have more peace in it to dwell.

William Topaz is firmly in the temperance camp. However, the great Flann O’Brian takes a contrary view about alcohol. In his view it is truly the workman’s friend:

The Workman’s Friend

When things go wrong and will not come right,
Though you do the best you can,
When life looks black as the hour of night -
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

When money's tight and hard to get
And your horse has also ran,
When all you have is a heap of debt -
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

When health is bad and your heart feels strange,
And your face is pale and wan,
When doctors say you need a change,
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

When food is scarce and your larder bare
And no rashers grease your pan,
When hunger grows as your meals are rare -
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

In time of trouble and lousey strife,
You have still got a darlint plan
You still can turn to a brighter life -
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

So there you have it. McGonagall sees alcohol as a demon, while Flann considers it to be the balm that soothes the ills of the working man. To be honest I must go with Flann on this issue but only in moderation of course. Sadly O’Brian did not treat a pint (or 12) of plain as just a friend; it was also his lover and constant companion....

MacGonagall tackles a political issue of the day

I am utterly grateful to MacGonagall Online and its “Gem of the day” service which delivers a poem by William Topaz to my inbox every morning. Today’s offering is “Women’s Suffrage” in which he shows his whole-hearted support for the extension of the vote to women. Sadly his laudable sentiments are undermined by his ineptitude as a poet Here is an extract for your delight and delectation:

Fellow men! why should the lords try to despise
And prohibit women from having the benefit of the parliamentary Franchise ?
When they pay the same taxes as you and me,
I consider they ought to have the same liberty.

And I consider if they are not allowed the same liberty,
From taxation every one of them should be set free;
And if they are not, it is really very unfair,
And an act of injustice I most solemnly declare....

....And that, in my opinion, is really very unjust;
But the time is not far distant, I most earnestly trust,
When women will have a parliamentary vote,
And many of them, I hope, will wear a better petticoat.

And I hope that God will aid them in this enterprise,
And enable them to obtain the parliamentary Franchise;
And rally together, and make a bold stand,
And demand the parliamentary Franchise throughout Scotland....


...Therefore go on brave women! and never fear,
Although your case may seem dark and drear,
And put your trust in God, for He is strong;
And ye will gain the parliamentary Franchise before very long.

Wonderful stuff! The world would have been a poorer place if William Topaz MacGonagall had not existed.

More bad poetry

Alejandro Cao de Benos de Les y Pérez is the founder and president (or should that be Dear Leader?) of the Korean Friendship Association. He is thus one of North Korea’s main useful idiots (with the emphasis on idiot). Like other Juche groupies he also seems to have a liking for execrable poetry. This one was published in 2004 in a defunct KFA newsletter called Lodestar.

Beyond the Bektusan

The Motherland oppressed for so many centuries
Our beloved Leader transforms the history
The paradise on earth emerges
Korea salutes to the eternal Sun of the Juche

By the streets of Hyangsan
a child question to his father
How it is the life beyond the Bektu?

People kill for money
The egoism is king
There’s no peace neither harmony
just a nightmare, nothing else

Ten years of life are enough to pull a trigger
Ten thousand are needed so that the miracle takes place
What is our fortune?

From the sky came a great warrior
With a heart purer than the diamond
He rescued us from the suffering
Brought the happiness and pride
to this horizon

To live and to die following his steps
There will be no tear lakes that fill the emptiness
But guns and soldiers who will defend his conquest

Hmm this is just too easy. I will make this the last bit of bad poetry to appear here for a while (unless I deign to write some myself of course!)

A Daily Delivery of McGonagall

As stated in a ost a couple of days ago McGonagall Online is an excellent resource for all things related to the worst poet ever to write in the English Language (Dermot Hudson, on reflection, has not yet demonstrated that his work is consistently atrocious over a lifetime).

One of it's best features is the ability to sign up for a daily dose of the poetry of William Topaz to be delivered fesh every morning to your inbox. Today's "gem" is The Queen's Diamond Jubilee Celebrations. Here are a few verses for your delight and delectation - the whole poem is hust too much pleasure!


Twas in the year of 1897, and on the 22nd of June,
Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee in London caused a great boom;
Because high and low came from afar to see,
The grand celebrations at Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee.


People were there from almost every foreign land,
Which made the scene really imposing and grand;
Especially the Queen's carriage, drawn by eight coloured bays,
And when the spectators saw it joyous shouts they did raise.


Then the sound of the National Anthem was heard quite clear,
And the sound the hearts of the mighty crowd it did cheer;
As they heard the loyal hymning on the morning air,
The scene was most beautiful and surpassing fair.


The Natal mounted troops were loudly cheered, they looked so grand,
And also the London Irish Emerald Isle Band;
Oh if was a most magnificent sight to see.
The Malta Militia and Artillery,
And the Trinidad Artillery, and also bodies of infantry,
And, as the crowd gazed thereon, it filled their hearts with glee.


His Excellency Chan Yin Hun in his carriage was a great attraction,
And his Oriental garb seemed to give the people great satisfaction;
While the two little Battenberg's carriage, as it drove along,
Received from the people cheering loud and long.


Her Majesty the Empress Frederick a great sensation made,
She was one of the chief attractions in the whole cavalcade;
And in her carriage was the Princess Louise, the Marchioness of Lorne,
In a beautiful white dress, which did per person adorn.


The 42nd Highlanders looked very fine,
When they appeared and took up a position on the line;
And the magnificent decorations in the Strand,
As far east as the Griffin wets attractive and grand.


The welcome given to Commander-in-Chief Lord Wolseley was very flattering,
The people cheered him until the streets did ring;
And the foreign princes were watched with rivetted admiration,
And caused among the sight-seers great consternation,


And in conclusion, I most earnestly do pray,
May God protect Her Majesty for many a day;
My blessing on her noble form and on her lofty head,
And may she wear a crown of glory hereafter when dead.


Go on, I dare you to sign up.. You know you want to!

McGonigall v the Songun Poet

In a post yesterday I drew attention to the poetry of the British warrior of songun Dermot Hudson. His work can be compared in stature to that of the poet laureate Alfred Austin, Roger B, a naturalist, photographer and regular commenter on the Poor Mouth (and thus a splendid fellow) compared Hudson’s work to Scottish Victorian-era poet William McGonagall.

Born in 1825, William Topaz McGonigall did not discover his poetic talents until he was 25 years old His first poem, An Address to the Rev. George Gilfillan set. Rev. Gilfillan commented "Shakespeare never wrote anything like this." McGonagall is viewed as the worst poet ever to have written in the English language. Of his 200 works perhaps the worst is the Tay Bridge Disaster:

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

'Twas about seven o'clock at night,
And the wind it blew with all its might,
And the rain came pouring down,
And the dark clouds seem'd to frown,
And the Demon of the air seem'd to say-
"I'll blow down the Bridge of Tay."

When the train left Edinburgh
The passengers' hearts were light and felt no sorrow,
But Boreas blew a terrific gale,
Which made their hearts for to quail,
And many of the passengers with fear did say-
"I hope God will send us safe across the Bridge of Tay."

But when the train came near to Wormit Bay,
Boreas he did loud and angry bray,
And shook the central girders of the Bridge of Tay
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

So the train sped on with all its might,
And Bonnie Dundee soon hove in sight,
And the passengers' hearts felt light,
Thinking they would enjoy themselves on the New Year,
With their friends at home they lov'd most dear,
And wish them all a happy New Year.

So the train mov'd slowly along the Bridge of Tay,
Until it was about midway,
Then the central girders with a crash gave way,
And down went the train and passengers into the Tay!
The Storm Fiend did loudly bray,
Because ninety lives had been taken away,
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

As soon as the catastrophe came to be known
The alarm from mouth to mouth was blown,
And the cry rang out all o'er the town,
Good Heavens! the Tay Bridge is blown down,
And a passenger train from Edinburgh,
Which fill'd all the peoples hearts with sorrow,
And made them for to turn pale,
Because none of the passengers were sav'd to tell the tale
How the disaster happen'd on the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

It must have been an awful sight,
To witness in the dusky moonlight,
While the Storm Fiend did laugh, and angry did bray,
Along the Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay,
Oh! ill-fated Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay,
I must now conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,
At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.

It is atrocious stuff but is it worse than songun? For all his ineptness McGonigall never waxed lyrical about an evil and brutal dictator as Hudson does. It’s a hard call but perhaps William Topaz can now hand over the baton.

If you wish to know more about McGonigall this site McGonigall online is an excellent place to start.