Bad Poetry Day: Heartbeats and By Moonlight

Bad Poetry Day is pretty old in concept… older the old ones themselves, but new to IHC. In this first installment of Bad Poetry Day, we’ll look at the two incredibly awful poems that started the whole mess: “Heartbeats” and “By Moonlight” with more to come. And they get progressively worse as time goes on…

Heartbeats by Chris
I went to the store;
the store was closed.
I went to see my girl;
her door was closed.
I went to confession;
the booth was closed.
I looked into my heart,
and it was open…
and bleeding…
and making a mess all over the floor…
So I went to the hospital,and they closed my heart.

Critique:A brilliant piece of prose,indeed.We can clearly see both anguish and satisfaction pour from these words. In the first two stanzas,we are told that both the store and a door were closed.In contrast, the poet’s heart is open and bleeding all over the floor. The irony is that both stores, doors and hearts can be either open or closed, depending on the time of day, whether one calls ahead of time, or proper surgical techniques. Under normal circumstances, one may assume that a store would be open for business, that the poet’s girl would have her door open for him,etc. But hearts are usually well sealed, keeping the gallons of blood contained therein.So here we must ask ourselves under what circumstances these foretold events would happen.

Stores are open most days of the week for normal business hours unless it’s 2am, or the store is out of business. One’s girl usually has her door open for her love, unless the door is locked and no one is home,or the poet has the wrong address. Whereas hearts are usually closed,unless one is the victim of a gunshot wound,stab wound,or bear attack.To the casual observer,most of us would notice a large loss of blood (not to mention a gaping hole in the chest) that would result from an open heart wound and take progressive action in order to stop this, mainly by going to the hospital first.Yet the poet first stops at the store and his girl’s door, making the bold statement that the health of our physical state is merely trivial in comparison to the health of our soul and well being. It may have been at the store or his girl’s door that he might find both physical help (hydrogen peroxide and bandages) as well as the sort of love he might not expect at a hospital. Even though the hospital fixed his heart,there is no love.”they closed my heart.” Straight to the point. Emotionless. Not the sort of phrase that might have been used had his girl been able to sew his heart back up sucessfully.This is also making the statement that we must put our faith in those who love us,not just those we are told might help us.

Rating:5 stars

By Moonlight by Orin
by moonlight i might see
if it were not so dark inside.
by moonlight i might see
if only i could see the window.
where is my candle?
it’s in my vagina.

Critique:
The poet uses many interesting lyrical devices in this poem to express the trials and tribulations of being a modern female. Lines one and 3 suggest that the poet is looking for something to illuminate her soul. The “darkness” the poet speaks of represents the poet’s feelings of emptiness. The poet is looking for a deeper meaning for her existance.She can not “see the window” because she is looking for meaning where it does not exist. In line 5,the poet asks herself where her “candle” is.

She wants to know what is illuminating her soul,as she has not been able to find it yet.In the last line of the poem,she realizes that her vagina,or womanhood, is where this light originates. The light she has been looking for has been present the whole time.This is a very interesting and compelling look into the human condition. Unbelievable!

Rating: 5 stars