Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Bad Running Poetry

I love poetry.

I also love bad-writing contests. Here's the winner of the 2010 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest:

For the first month of Ricardo and Felicity's affair, they greeted one another at every stolen rendezvous with a kiss--a lengthy, ravenous kiss, Ricardo lapping and sucking at Felicity's mouth as if she were a giant cage-mounted water bottle and he were the world's thirstiest gerbil.
--Molly Ringle of Seattle, Washington

How can you not love that?

Tomorrow (Aug. 18) is Bad Poetry Day, so a blogger for Runner's World invited his readers to make contributions with (of course) a running theme. You can read them all here. But here are some of my favorites.

Feetsies I wuv you,
tootsies I do.
But get your ugly digits,
back in my running shoe!

by kittenkat

Then out spoke brave Horatius, he of the steady gait:
"To every man upon this earth, death cometh soon or late;
And how can man die better than facing fearful odds,
Bravely chasing his BQ, his feet just barely shod."

by ben.miramontes

Long distance running
It's much like a dance
But if you go for too long
You might poop your pants

by Keith McGahey

Here's my contribution:

Thank you for the Port-a-John
That sits upon the golf course lawn.
Thank you for the 7-Eleven
Sent like a pre-dawn slice of heaven
When I need some gummy bears.
Thank you for my Camelbak
With its little zipper pack
That nicely neatly holds a phone
To help me feel much less alone,
To call my husband when I'm done
And when no further I must run,
When in a Starbucks chair I sit
And wonder vaguely, dimly, if
I'll ever rise again.
Thank you for this chocolate milk
Flowing down my throat like silk.
Its proteins will my muscles build,
Its sugars my glycogen stores fill,
So that at dawn on Tuesday next
I'll rise just like a person hexed
And jog in zombie warm-up mode
To the track whose line I've often toed
For lots more trips around.
Thank you for this cold ice bath.
Thank you for this two-hour nap.
And if you've read to this stage late
Thank you for you--you're nuts but great.


Don't think I'll send that to my English teacher.

If you've got a bad running jingle in you, leave it in a comment!

7 comments:

  1. LOVE THIS!!! You are awesome!!! Hmmmm

    Running is fun
    sleeping is too
    But I cant do both
    soigetupreallyearly and put on my running shoe(s)

    Yup, that is definitely BAD! :)

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  2. Wow! You are quite the poet--love it!

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  3. Have a bad habit of making new lyrics to songs while I'm running - that's all the prose you will get out of me. Guns 'N Roses has become by favorite (but only two lines) starting with Take Me Down to Paradise City ...
    Run on the side of the road if you feel spitty
    Had to squat in the bushes and now I feel gritty
    I think I'm lost, now that's a pity
    90 degrees in the shade and I feel sh.... (you know)

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  4. Ha, that was awesome! Don't sell yourself short, I really thought it was good!

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  5. Love it! We don't write enough poetry these days :).

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  6. LOL, I hope we're allowed to make up words for these bad poems:

    Some runners like books on sports psychology,
    so they enter the draw on my bloggy!
    If you didn't win you might have been filled rage,
    but that's not the case, so visit my page!

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  7. Beware the runner
    whose rhyming running haiku
    flows like frigid GU.

    Delicate black moon,
    sliver crescent on pale quick,
    please stay little nail.

    ReplyDelete