Bad Poetry II: “Hard” and “Crimson Butterflies”

More more more from the bad poetry vaults!

“Hard” by Orin

hard as it may be,
i bang it with a hammer.

it does not crack,
it does not look back

it does not turn black
and shrivel away and die.

i will stay here
with crusty things in my eye.

This wonderful poem shows us that the poet’s soul is stronger than the flesh that contains it. This poem deals with an inner stuggle,between the concious mind and the soul.In the first stanza,the poet suggests that he is trying to find a weak point in his soul. By “banging it with a hammer”, the poet is really torturing himself,in the hopes that he will weaken his soul enough to free it from it’s earthly body.In stanzas 2 and 3,however,we find that his soul is strong,as is his will to live.His soul is unbreakable. In line 4,he states “it does not look back”.Even at this very trying time,his soul stays focused on the future.It doesn’t respond to his many attacks.In fact,lines 5 and 6 show that his soul is completely unphased by these traumatic events.Life goes on,unaffected.
The last 2 lines of this poem are,by far,the most powerful.Having assaulted his soul and failed,the poet decides that he will live on,though his concious mind may want to die.The “crusty things” in his eye represent his feelings of self doubt and suicidal thoughts,which are obstructing his view of life. In the end,he decides to live with these obstructions,because his spirit is too strong to be blinded by mere “crusty things”.
Rating *****

“Crimson Butterflies” by Chris

I stare into the starry night;
and hope that life awaits me there.

A subtle breeze engulfs my soul;
And interrupts my solemn stare.

A winged angel drifting by
On air displaced by tiny sighs

of cherubs,sprites,and spirits of night.
A delicate dance, this etherial flight.

I reach out to this wisp of life;
And eat it;

It takes like chicken.

“What man stays a man for long? What ant does not soon become something larger than its own existance?”- Donald R. Humpencrack.(1880) In this work, the poet accomplishes alot of humanity just a little space, transcending human experience from beginning to end. He starts the poem with the hope that he is not alone, searching for life in the heavens, just as many of us often wonder if there is anyone that sees things the way that we see them. Yet in the very next stanza, his search is interrupted by forces who boldly proclaim “I am here!”, hoping to connect with the poet’s lonliness. They dance and try to rouse the poet from his slumber, trying to show that life is not something far away to be pined for, but within reach. And in his most profound statement, he realizes it is within eating distance. Much like Jesus when he fasted in the desert for 40 days, the poet at this point has given up all earthly needs of his body in his search. When the ethereal creatures come to him, it might be in a hallucination from hunger, it could be something all in his brain. He eats these things “like chicken”, showing that they are not only mundane, but they are full of nutrients that he will need to continue his search for companionship. For he has eaten the only things that have come to him, making the supernatural mundane and perhaps even delicious if the poet had had any bbq sauce on hand. But because of the lack of bbq sauce, he eats his angels plain and without remorse, moving himself into the realm of the supernatural and of course, carnivorous.
Rating *****1/2