# Incredibly bad poetry that was popular in its day for some reason **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 4, 2013, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-bad-poetry-that-was-popular-in-its-day-for-some-reason/660135 "2013-06-04T17:52:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Sam\_A.Robrin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sam_a.robrin/32/14497_2.png) [@Sam\_A.Robrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_A.Robrin)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2013, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-bad-poetry-that-was-popular-in-its-day-for-some-reason/660135/61 "2013-06-07T06:56:02Z")
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**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2013, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-bad-poetry-that-was-popular-in-its-day-for-some-reason/660135/62 "2013-06-07T16:41:32Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > I’ll do you one better, [sung by Bob from _Sesame Street._](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW1SY09cQhQ) Heh. I was only familiar with the version [sung by Wayne and Wanda](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JGVHndX5MA). ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2013, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-bad-poetry-that-was-popular-in-its-day-for-some-reason/660135/63 "2013-06-08T02:08:20Z")
That is inappropriately pleasant. And short. Could they try another take, one in which it sing-songs, seemingly, forever? (Is **iampunha** still around? As I recall, he’s a Kilmer and I don’t want to hurt his feelings.) Anyway, I wondered if _Trees_ was written on a bad day, and his other poems were better. Here’s one called [Delicatessen.](http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/delicatessen/) Surely it has a gritty, urban feel! \*Perhaps Fame thinks his worried eyes, His wrinkled, shrewd, pathetic face, His shop, and all he sells and buys Are desperately commonplace. Well, it is true he has no sword To dangle at his booted knees. He leans across a slab of board, And draws his knife and slices cheese. He never heard of chivalry, He longs for no heroic times; He thinks of pickles, olives, tea, And dollars, nickles, cents and dimes. \* I guess not. But he was a poet of the Great War! Could life in the trenches have hardened his outlook and turned him into another Owen, Sassoon, or Graves? [Here’s his most famous war poem,](http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/rouge-bouquet-2/) about a trench collapsing, trapping 21 of his colleagues from the Fighting 69th. He knew those guys, so Kilmer should be able to draw more raw emotion, even art, out of it than a Scotsman writing about a bridge collapse, right? _In a wood they call the Rouge Bouquet There is a new-made grave to-day, Built by never a spade nor pick Yet covered with earth ten metres thick. There lie many fighting men, Dead in their youthful prime, Never to laugh nor love again Nor taste the Summertime._ I guess not. Christ, [Robert W. Service](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/315/315-h/315-h.htm#link2H_4_0019) wouldn’t climb out of his own puke to write that crap. _O God, take the sun from the sky! It’s burning me, scorching me up. God, can’t You hear my cry? ‘Water! A poor, little cup!’ It’s laughing, the cursed sun! See how it swells and swells Fierce as a hundred hells! God, will it never have done? It’s searing the flesh on my bones; It’s beating with hammers red My eyeballs into my head; It’s parching my very moans. See! It’s the size of the sky, And the sky is a torrent of fire, Foaming on me as I lie Here on the wire . . . the wire. . . ._ ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_A.Robrin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sam_a.robrin/32/14497_2.png) [@Sam\_A.Robrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_A.Robrin)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2013, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-bad-poetry-that-was-popular-in-its-day-for-some-reason/660135/64 "2013-06-08T03:07:23Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Heh. I was only familiar with the version [sung by Wayne and Wanda](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JGVHndX5MA). It’s been covered by a variety of virtuosos: https://www.youtube.com/embed/VIW_0ho2tfU?feature=oembed&wmode=opaque ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2013, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-bad-poetry-that-was-popular-in-its-day-for-some-reason/660135/65 "2013-06-08T03:48:09Z")
> [@limegreen](#): > > There was one about ‘The antiseptic baby and the prophylactic pup’ or some nonsense like that. Shall have to go google that… > **[Strictly Germ-proof - Collection at Bartleby.com](https://www.bartleby.com/lit-hub/modern-american-poetry/strictly-germ-proof/)** > > Strictly Germ-proof THE ANTISEPTIC BABY and the Prophylactic PupWere playing in the garden when the Bunny gamboled up;They looked upon the Creature with a loathing [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-bad-poetry-that-was-popular-in-its-day-for-some-reason/660135.md?page=3)