Sucky sober poetry

I still occasionally write sober poetry, and again I will emphasize the suckiness of this poetry compared to my drunk poetry. In case you do not believe me, I am going to prove it to you.

First this preface: Most of the sober poetry I write is part of this exchange I have going on with my mother. Every week, one of us picks out 3 words, and we both have to use those words in a poem. On Sundays, we email each other whatever we've come up with (awwww, I know, it's very sweet).

A couple weeks ago, I picked the words "combustion," "Russian," and "womanly" for our poems. Don't ask me why I chose them - they just came to me. Here's the piece of crap sober poem that I wrote. I didn't even title it because it's so shitty.

Combustion, combustion,
light it up like a matchstick
and smoke over the broad view-
the womanly landscape,
thick trunks of white Russian pine
still drunk on the
last licks of winter.
Let it fester and smolder
in the blurry forgettable background,
poking and prodding and stoking-
oblivious to the woman's swiveling hips
until she kicks you in the groin
with her back-draft.

Um, just a sec - I'll be right back. I just have to go puke a little bit...

Okay, I'm back. You agree with me, right? Call the janitor, because that poem was absolutely vomitrocious. Now for the drunk version. I still used the 3 poetry assignment words, but in way that is the opposite of sucky (aka AWESOME):

Sexy Time?

Combustion!

It’s all in the making-

My triumphant mechanics

And your

Respective

Womanly

Parts.

We fit like

Shapes in a baby’s puzzle.

We’ll have babies!

With Russian noses

And your…

Skin.

You have good skin.

What?

That doesn’t go there?

So this is what it feels like

To go spelunking…

Okay, so,

I may have lied about the combustion.

The secret to good poetry is to not be like Nicolas Cage.

People do stupid things when they are drunk. Like singing karaoke. Or getting a unicorn tattoo. Or peeing in the sink. I write poetry. And for some inexplicable reason (it may have something to do with magic), my drunk poetry is phenomenally better than my sober poetry.

Yes, I also write poetry when I am sober. It's where I got started. Unfortunately, the majority of this poetry usually falls somewhere between trash and poop. I guess I can't be too hard on myself. Most poetry out there- probably like 99% - is complete crap. Most of that 99% comes from English majors, I'm pretty sure. Anyways, given the suckiness of my past poetry, you'd think I would have given up and moved on to a more sensible hobby. The problem is that I've tasted that elusive 1%. On rare occasions, I've been able to extract that one sparkling diamond poem out of the trash and poop. It's like Dave Matthews or Nicolas Cage - they were able to miraculously produce that one good noteworthy performance, and now, no matter how shitty they are at what they do, they just keep pumping out more and more shit because they know that glorious feeling of pure shit-free success, and they want more.

But I don't want to be like Dave Matthews, and I definitely don't want to be like Nicolas Cage. In my perfect world, I would be the Lady Gaga or the Meryl Streep of poetry, pulling diamonds out of the poop left and right. I want to find that happy 1% more than just once in a blue moon.

Fortunately, fate has smiled on me. At last, at last, a key to good poetry! All my writing needed was a swift kick in the pants from a bottle of vodka. And lucky for me, I love drinking! It's really a fantastic set up for me.

The future looks much brighter now for my poetry. And while I'm still no Gaga or Streep, I'm probably on par with Robert Downey Jr. and I'm moving on up! The best part of it is - if I still write the occasional shitty poem, it doesn't matter because - hey, I was drunk.