Free Very Bad Poetry by Kathryn Petras

England, author of numerous masterpieces, had his off days. Sometimes it was just a line that went astray—as in his unconsciously pornographic:
    Give me your tool, to him I said.
    Other times it was an entire poem, such as the following work—possibly one of the worst poems ever written by a good poet. Wordsworth explained that he was compelled to write these lines after seeing
    on a stormy day, a thorn which I had often past, in
calm and bright weather, without noticing it. I said
to myself, “Cannot I by some invention do as much
to make this Thorn permanently an impressive object
as the storm has made it to my eyes at the moment?
    Unfortunately for Wordsworth, many might say that the answer to his question is no.
    from
The Thorn

by
William Wordsworth
    Before you up the mountain go,
Up to the dreary mountain-top,
I’ll tell you all I know.
’Tis now some two-and-twenty years
Since she (her name is Martha Ray)
Gave, with a maiden’s true good will,
Her company to Stephen Hill;
And she was blithe and gay,
And she was happy, happy still
Whene’er she thought of Stephen Hill.
    And they had fixed the wedding day,
The morning that must wed them both;
But Stephen to another Maid
Had sworn another oath;
And with the other Maid, to church
Unthinking Stephen went—
Poor Martha! on that woeful day
A cruel, cruel fire, they say,
Into her bones was sent:
It dried her body like a tinder,
And almost turned her brain to cinder.

FRANCIS SALTUS SALTUS
(1849-1889)
    A merican poet Francis Saltus Saltus considered himself a member of the decadent school of literature. He loved modern women who smoked cigarettes, and he pored through the Bible in search of pornographic sections and idolized the French writers Baudelaire, Gerard de Nerval, and the Marquis de Sade.
    Like his heroes, Saltus was fascinated by the morbid, the depraved, and the abnormal. Unlike them he wrote with a boyish exuberance—especially heavy on the exclamation points—and this tendency adds a novel twist to his theoretically dark poetic subjects.
    By the time Saltus died at age thirty-nine, he had written over five thousand poems, most of them a unique blend of lurid subject matter, florid imagery, unbridled enthusiasm, and surprise endings—a fascinating collection of “decadence lite.”
    Here the poet compares British and Indian child-rearing habits, coming to a decidedly anti-multicultural climax.
Mothers
    Radiant with vernal grace and summer flowers,
   The English landscape in rich splendor glows;
Half hidden ’mid sweet labyrinths of bowers,
   A snow-white cottage nestles like a rose.
    Within a woman sits, supremely blessed.
   Her clear, blue eyes reflect a boundless joy.
When, with long kisses on a loving breast,
   She soothes to sleep her little, dimpled boy!
    Delhi’s majestic temples, domed and porched,
   Tower up in proud, magnificent array;
The sluggish Ganges, by the fierce sun scorched,
   Gleams like a scimitar in the hot mid-day.
    A woman kneels among the reeds and sands,
   Kissing a wee, bronzed child that coos and smiles.
Enough,—great Brahma speaks!—with trembling hands
   She hurls her first-born to the crocodiles!
Posthumous Revenge
       The one I loathed, my one malignant foe,
He who had marred my life in cruel wise,
   Lay mute before me, nevermore to rise,
Pierced to his treacherous heart by one quick blow.
    ….
       And then, oh God! while I stood fearless there,
Alone in that deserted, sullied place,
   I heard, I heard, a murmur of despair,
A hot, swift
something
struck me on the face!
    Pallid with anger, I did quickly turn,
   To cruelly chastise the foe unknown,
I felt the warm wound on my forehead burn,
   But, oh! avenging God!
we were alone!
       Then horror held me, while I no thing saw,
I sank unto my knees without control,
   For I had understood at last, in awe,
That what had struck me was his
outraged soul!
The Kiss
    Incorrigible, false coquette,
   She spurned my