Crappy High School Poetry

Posted by Price on February 28, 2010 at 9:17 pm

A friend of mine sent me a link to this website the other day. It allows you to automatically assemble a gothic-style poem (the kind that does not rhyme, of course), the kind of horrendous garbage depressed high school students write about how death is awesome and no one loves them and blah blah blah etc, scribbled in notebook margins alongside anarchy symbols and Violent Femmes lyrics.

And as I sat there making fun of losers that wrote crappy high school poetry, I remembered: hey, I wrote crappy high school poetry! If I’m going to make fun of it, I should at least have the guts to illustrate my point with some of the free verse I penned back in the late 80s, when I was a lonely, tortured, misunderstood Byron-type who fancied himself the quintessential Hopeless Romantic. (In reality, I was a nerdy Star Trek fan who played in the band and was less Hopeless Romantic than just plain Hopeless.)

To that end, I give you the first in a series: Crappy High School Poetry by the young Price Horn. Today’s installment: “She.” I’m even including a scan of the original in all its Commodore-64-dot-matrix-printed glory, with the full text following:

small poetry from a small man

She

She
Walked below a burning bridge to
Tear my throne away

     The heat scorches, but it cannot erase.

She
Filled my mind with thoughts of flame and
Love and joyous pain.

     The heat draws me even through my fear.

She
Reached into a fiery void and grasped
Me, and I ran.

     The heat remains.

     I remain.

Thoughts and questions:

  • She walked below a burning bridge, did she? That’s a pretty dangerous strategy, what with the flaming timbers falling on your head and whatnot, but she was willing to take the risk because she was on a vitally important mission: to tear my throne away.
  • Why did she want my throne?
  • Wait a minute… why did I even have a throne?
  • Seriously, a throne? What does any of this even mean?
  • Was the bridge set aflame by the fiery void?
  • How does a void burn? By its very definition, a void can contain no flammable materials. That’s why they call it a void.
  • She used Jedi mind trick powers to make me think about “flame.” Considering all the heat and flame and burning bridges and fiery voids, you would think flames would be foremost on my mind.
  • Oh, she also implanted thoughts of love (of course she did) and “joyous pain.” Joyous pain… shades of the “bringers of pain and delight” from the classic Trek episode “Spock’s Brain.” (I told you I was nerdy.)
  • It’s nice to know that despite the burning and the running and the grasping and the hey hey hey it hurts me nice lady… I remain. Dude, that is so deep. Long before the Dude was abiding, the Priceman was remaining.
  • Also the heat.
  • In short: This telepathic chick totally loved me, but I ran… I ran so far away, mostly because of rampant flaming. Something tells me a man could read something into that.

Posted in Just for Fun, Random Thoughts |

3 Responses to “Crappy High School Poetry”

  1. Chris Says:
    March 1st, 2010 at 11:37 am

    Wicked scary, this. Full of portent, angst and….scary stuff.

    Is THIS how the Price we all know and love came to be???

    Let us all do a mighty shiver as we utter a collective “EEEEESSSSSHHHHHHH!!!”

  2. Jessie Says:
    March 2nd, 2010 at 2:56 pm

    I’m pretty sure throne = toilet.

  3. JJSB Says:
    March 12th, 2010 at 9:59 pm

    Throne absolutely = toilet. There was much heat in this crappy verse. Was the throne…er…I mean toilet heated as well.

Leave a Reply