A Tragedy by Theophile Marzials
Death!
Plop.
The barges down in the river flop.
Flop, plop,
Above, beneath.
From the slimy branches the grey drips drop…
To the oozy waters, that lounge and flop…
And my head shrieks – “Stop”
And my heart shrieks – “Die.”…
Ugh! yet I knew – I knew
If a woman is false can a friend by true?
It was only a lie from beginning to end–
My Devil – My “friend.”…
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,
Plop.
which apparently is the worst poem ever written in English.
I wrote some adolescent dirges which could challenge this – including the iconic Pause for thought, a blank page with the letters “ah” carefully positioned in its centre – submitted as assessed work in a CSYS English class.
Any other contenders for the worst poem ever written in English (and you can write them now if you like) gratefully received.
I wrote a concrete poem about a doughnut shaped like a doughnut
Blues
Azure not here
I’m left cyan…
The quoted poem is a veritable masterpiece compared with some of my juvenile ‘abstract’ efforts.
Recently I’ve had occasion to be looking through books of verse allegedly thought suitable as headstone epitaphs – most are dire, some in supreme bad taste – try this -
“Here lies Willie Brown
– He now looks up
As he once looked down”
My granny’s favourite of the type was
Here lies John Dunn
He was killed by a gun
His name was not Dunn but Wood
But Wood would
not rhyme with gun,
but Dunn
would.
My favourite living bad poet is the inexhaustibly emissive Nikhil Parekh, the King of the nearly apt adverb.