The Terrible Poetry Contest 4/2/22

Chel Owens

Welcome to the biweekly Terrible Poetry Contest!

Did you know that everyone writes terrible poetry? Even bonafide, published, worshipped ‘poets’ write terrible poetry. Don’t worry; none of us is that famous (I think). We’re in it for the notoriety. Wanna join in but aren’t sure how to let it all go? Try reading my tips, here.

Here are the specifics for this contest:

  1. Matt won it all last round, and says we’ll write on the Theme of bad driving, free-verse style. Free verse is defined as “nonmetrical, nonrhyming lines that closely follow the natural rhythms of speech” (Poetry Foundation). Basically, you’re freewheeling it and trying to sound artsy doing so.
  2. You’re the driver; you choose the Length.
  3. Traditional free verse poetry does not Rhyme. You take that where you wish.
  4. Just make it terrible! Take the pedal to the medal on a collision course so awful you drive Ms. Daisy crazy.
  5. Rating: PG-13 or cleaner. I’ve seen you drive.

You have till 8:00 a.m. MDT on Thursday, April 14 to submit a poem.

Use the form below if you want to be anonymous for a week. It hasn’t gone through unless you see a message saying it has.

For a more social experience, include your poem or a link to it in the comments. Please alert me if your pingback or poem does not show up within a day.

The winner gains bragging rights, a badge, and the option to choose the next iteration’s topic and type of poem.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

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©2022 Chel Owens

30 thoughts on “The Terrible Poetry Contest 4/2/22”

  2. Ya know Chel, maybe you should put a stipulation in your rules that winners can’t participate in the styles/themes they pick. That would take them out of the running at least once as to not hog the spotlight. After thinking about what you said I have no problem sitting this round out. Considering I have been a winner of this little contest a hell of a lot of times. 😁

    Liked by 1 person

  4. When we start
    It is odd
    Is it not?
    That the pause in the flow
    Might somehow show
    A teasing hint
    Of thought so deep
    Of thinking, not sinking
    into sleep
    An inner confusion
    Leading to the illusion
    Of footsteps
    well trod
    But just rot
    Pretending to be art

    Liked by 4 people

  5. Steering wheel
    Gas pedal
    Brake
    I’m not sure which is which
    I prefer abstract philosophical principles
    To hard-headed empiricism
    Those colored lights they put over the intersections are really pretty

    Liked by 4 people

  6. This poem is in imitation of Gerald Stern’s American Sonnets. There “sonnets” have no rhyme nor meter (and often no sense that I could detect). They are all one sentence long allowing the reader to put in line breaks or not. I would call them terrible American sonnets, but he won some award for them and they are occasionally entertaining.

    Bad Driver

    I told my shrink that the cops brought me here because of my bad driving and he said I had no record of ever driving a car in my life and I told him, not car, spaceship, S-P-A-C-E-S-H-I-P, and he said I had no spaceship and wasn’t an alien because my DNA test, D-N-A, showed I’m human enough and I told him, well, then why am I in that padded cell and he said I wasn’t in any cell and I asked him if he was trying to drive me crazy and if he was he wasn’t doing a good job of it and then he said I was brought in because I was scaring the neighborhood kids and the judge assigned me to him and I told him that I had a lot of fun turning my head 360 degrees like an owl and he said I couldn’t do stuff like that and I asked him whether he ever saw me and he said no and so I asked him if he wanted to see me turn my head 360 degrees and he said, “Sure, Marvin, go ahead turn your head 360 degrees like an own, go on show me” and so I turned my head 360 degrees like an owl and he called the exorcist.

    Liked by 3 people

  7. Pingback: Road Ragin’ | Greg's Blog

  10. THE BIRD

    Your blinker
    is on
    Still…
    Oh
    How much
    Slower must I
    go to get
    You off
    My
    Ass!
    Veins they but protrude
    Shades of red flush my face
    Cut me off
    The hell ?
    Holy
    Shit a
    Spider in front of
    my face!
    Smash Boom
    Crash
    not me, thankfully
    we is stuck
    behind rubber
    neckers but you, you!!!
    Pass everyone by on
    the
    shoulder yield
    does not
    mean
    stop
    every single one of y’all
    gets the bird!

    Liked by 3 people

  11. Poor Parking Parable.

    What a dazzlingly bright sizzler of a triple digit day
    It was down at the Crucible Mall
    What a joy it was to be beneath cloudless azure skies
    In a Midnight Blue Horizon
    With no fu…nctioning air-conditioning
    Not a park to be found within spitting distance
    Of the Mall’s shady walls
    Nary a one
    Thanks to one selfish bas- parker
    who had left two half spaces on either side
    Of the fat-wheeled Ford F150 parked athwart the middle line
    Of the only two miserably designated Disabled car parks
    Lolling In his F150 sat
    A fat-as slack faced cowboy
    Hairy mitt draped on the wheel
    Cab wreathed in vape smoke
    He paused but for a second to chug down his Bud
    Before leaping down agilely and
    Lightly-
    Lightly for such a heavy gutted hombre-
    Onto the asphalt
    Belched heavily
    And strode back into the Booze Barn
    For ‘nother nourishing six-pack
    No Disabled card on view
    Nope, not right nor fair but…

    Never mind.

    After parking way out back in the back of beyond
    Out in the furthest and farthest
    Rarely traversed reaches of the car park
    Far from the Mall and the madding crowd
    I gamely sweated my way across
    The shimmering tacky asphalt
    Trekking towards the far-off
    Sliding doored cold comfort of
    Krogers
    My journey through Hades proved to be well worth it though!
    Oh
    So gratifying it was to see our invalid invalid
    Looking fair fit to be tied
    Getting roughly cuffed and arrested by someone
    Healthily buffed and in a well-stuffed XL black uniform
    And
    As a bonus
    Our cow-poke’s big-as truck getting all
    Set to be towed
    I joined in with the surrounding crowd
    Easing in beside
    A finely groomed and elegantly dressed elderly gent
    ‘Another ass who believes it’s his right to use not just one
    But two Disabled parks’ he offered
    Eyes hard as tempered steel
    ‘It’s rare to see such justice playing out before our eyes’
    I croaked agreeably in my parched cracked voice
    Seems all about us most folks agreed
    And as the baddest example
    Of good driving I’d seen in quite a while
    Was hauled away
    Everyone enthusiastically yet oddly waved him ta-ta’s
    All with both hands
    But sans fingers
    ‘Cept for middle digits
    I bade the elderly gent a hearty good day
    And walked
    away
    He went gladly off on his way
    His wheelchairs wheels
    Making one Hell of a deep impression along the
    Fords flanks
    Which made for quite the racket too
    But everyone in the vicinity
    Who should have witnessed this
    Had to have been deaf-finately handicapped

    If not deaf, blissfully, smilingly unaware.

    Liked by 3 people

      1. Thanks. Over here we use ‘-as’ as an add on to everything; Big-as, good-as, sad-as funny-as,
        happy as, crappy as, etc. I don’t know if it’s as prevalent in the States but here it’s a verbal tic.

        Liked by 1 person

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