The Bad Poem
Leaps naked from Mt. Everest
to fly like Superman and save Lois also naked
is buried in only a thong with Hardy’s heart at
St. Michael’s in Stinsford
nests in your brain like a wicked wiggleworm
plays hooky and stays home in bed with you in see through everything
crests the foam of the wave nude on a Sydney surfboard
tangos with lions on the savannah, sans anything but skin
mingles languidly with the ink on the tip of Shakespeare’s quill
plays hide and seek with only the sexy nouns and verbs
chills unabashed in Frost’s psyche on the road of difference
writes in red on the backside of imagery
It’s that clod of clay screaming in Brodsky’s throat
and the sixth finger you can’t see on Sexton’s & Clifton’s hands
It embraces the embraceable you of metaphor
kisses every star in the sky three times super sloppily
rides the moon whale to Everland still naked afraid only of man
smiles from the Simile Nightclub
and names its yacht The Naked Pantoum
Some days the bad poem wants to be a good poem
it seeks the comfort of rhyme
and gets itself back in line fully suited
but it always lunges back to the dark side
because it is such a bad poem
no confessional will admit it
So it strikes out again and again as
that song by Jim Steinman
catches in its throat
How good girls go to heaven
but bad girls go everywhere
and the bad poem knows
they always take a bad ass
poem along tucked way way down
into their bras or the back
pocket of the jeans.
—Ernie Wormwood