Zoe vs. Bad Poetry Day

You've waited all year.

It's finally here.

Bad Poetry Day! 

Twenty-four hours set aside

For verse few can abide.

Bad Poetry Day!

Hark! Here it comes.

Grab your bottle of Tums.

For it's the day. The day for bad poetry.

August 18th is Bad Poetry Day. In honor of this High Holy Day, I have written some bad poetry. With Zoe's help.

Taking a page (zing!) from some of the most famous poets in history, we looked to daily life for material, and then we took another page, by which I mean our poems might sound familiar, but with some differences. Terrible, awful differences.

"Cleaning Up Toys on a Tuesday Evening"

Whose mess this is I think I know

She was supposed to clear it hours ago

The toys, some sharp, are three-feet deep

Quite a few were hardly cheap

I've got work to do before I sleep

I've got work to do before I sleep

"To My Child, to Make Much of Time"

Gather ye dead leaves while ye may

Because we're leaving this park in two minutes

"Ode on a Strange Sound Coming from Her Bedroom"

Heard children are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter

What discordant shrieks and mysterious thumps?

What mad raving? What wild possession?

That loud sound was nothing, Mother,

And nothing made that sound

That is all Mommy knows on earth,

And all Mommy needs to know.

"Hope is the thing with feathers"

I don't know what that other toy is.

The one without feathers.

"Zoe-mandias"

I entered her room and found her thus, proclaiming:

"My name is Zoe-mandias, Queen of the World. Also, Brooklyn.

Look on my works, Mommy, and despair!"

Her bedsheets in disarray, ruins tell the tale of a stuffed-animal explosion. 

Around her feet, books spill out from her bookcase. 

And all over the floor just really a shit ton of Legos.

Colossal wreckage, boundless, stretching far away.

Like, that many Legos.

"Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night"

Do not go gentle into that good night

Rage, rage, and keep raging.

Are you still raging even though it's way past your bedtime?

Well done.

Now ask them for water.

"This Is Just to Say"

I peed in your bed

Last night

And not just a little bit.

Forgive me.

I was comfortable

And my legs weren't working.

Zoe: 145; Universe: 0

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy Zoe vs. the Keurig (plus an ode).

For more of Zoe's hijinks, follow me on Facebook and on Twitter at @zoevsuniverse. 

I need a win here, people. 

Quoth the Raven: Nevermore . . . than one post a week, if that, the Raven's tired. 
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Zoe vs. the Keurig (plus an ode)

Coffee, beautiful life-giving coffee. It is my second thought every morning when I wake up, my first being an inarticulate scream.

We have a regular coffeemaker and a Keurig. Two ways to get my fix. One thing standing in my way: a cranky four-year-old who wakes up even worse than I do.

That's the stuff!

I'm not even talking about the out-there OCD rituals and demands that occur with unsettling regularity. Though they are troublesome.

I'm talking about something I did to myself. One early morning, when it was still dark so Zoe insisted on turning on our kitchen light then got upset because it was too bright and would neither stop crying or allow me to turn off the light, out of desperation I latched on to a way to distract her. 

"Zoe, would you like to make my coffee?" Since Zoe, like most small children, likes anything that smacks of adulthood, she immediately perked up. (Coffee references run like a caffeine-withdrawal fever dream through my unconscious.)

I handed her a K-cup then pressed the power button. She eyed me critically for a moment. Then pressed the power button, paused, then pressed it again so she could be the one to turn it on. (What ever had I been thinking?)

As we waited for the water to heat, I sprawled forward over the counter while she stared, saucer-eyed, at the machine, waiting for The Miracle. When the water was ready I showed her how to insert the K-cup, close the lid, then press the middle button, an operation that dragged on and on---she had to keep inserting the K-cup and taking it out, then closing and opening the lid. 

The road led to coffee, but it was a circuitous route, and one we then had to travel every day with all the attendant bumps and detours that you don't seem to encounter until a four-year-old is behind the wheel.

Much here beyond my reach.

The offer once made could not be rescinded so now there's no getting my coffee without her "help." If I try, the sound of the machine gives me away, and though a mug of coffee is produced, it will most certainly be cold by the time I'm done making amends for my crime. By then she can make me a fresh one.

As is my wont, my suffering has inspired me to write bad poetry. This time I was moved to ruin Keats.

Heat that day-old sludge in the microwave and enjoy!

Ode on a Coffee Urn

Thou Keurig sitting on my countertop

Keats died young.
Coffee could've saved him.

Thou delivery system for my hit

What obstacle 'tis this, neath towhead mop

Lying athwart me and having a fit?

   Too early this, the sun is not yet up

   Through fogged mind, I fasten upon a cue

   A way to make my interests her care

   A plan that promises to fill my cup

   With Goddess Java, that heavenly brew.

   Forever will I love and it be fair.* (Also: far.)

Thoughts of French roast are sweet but the real deal

Is better. Therefore coax overwrought child

With K-cup, upon kitchen stool to kneel.

She is now slowness where before was wild.

   Forever thou seemst to dwell, beyond reach

   To a four-year-old's pace I am in thrall

   Oh how I wish that faster she would go,

   But speed is not a thing that one can teach

   Coffee is truth, truth coffee, that is all

   Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Zoe: 65; Universe: 0

* Italics for lines from actual poem. Old English-major habits die hard.