A Small Victory

Dave wants us all to send poems to Poetry.com. There's a reason and, as is always with Barry, it's a goofy little scheme of a reason.

But first, a poetry anecdote.

I was an aspiring poet when I was young. Weren't we all? When I was in ninth grade I came across the National Anthology of Poetry or something similar to that. Very distinguished sounding. Very prestigous. Right? Well, no.

I entered one of my bleeding heart poems about the Vietnam War or nuclear power or saving the whales, I don't remember which. It was accepted! I received a very official looking letter on very official looking letterhead with a very official embedded watermark on it and I rejoiced. Until I saw the official forms that came with that acceptance letter. You had to officially purchase the book that your poem was in, with official money.

Even in my ninth grade frame of mind, I knew this was fishy. Basically, they would accept any poem as long as you sent the "entry" fee and bought a hard covered, bound volume of the Anthology. I knew without even thinking about it twice that the book would contain enough bad poetry to make even a Hallmark card writer cringe. And I was paying them to publish my poem! No deal. I was disheartened, disillusioned and disgusted. A lot of disses there. I gave up on idealistic poetry and began writing dark, brooding free verse. I was goth before there was goth.

Anyhow, Poetry.com looks to be more of the same official looking contest, with an official looking prize given by an official looking site:

So anyway, this blog was just thinking how interesting it would be if a whole bunch of people submitted poems that contained a certain key poetic phrase. To see how it might work, this blog submitted a poem under the pen name of "Freemont A. Harkins," entitled: "A Sad Day." Here's how it goes:

A Sad Day

i am sad, so very sad
the tears run down my nose
it was a happy day until
the dog ate mother's toes

Then he says:

Wouldn't it be fun if a lot of people submitted poems using a Pen Name that began with "Freemont" and incorporating the phrase, "the dog ate mother's toes"? Then we all could search for poems written under the first name of "Freemont" -- currently, this blog is the only one -- and see how creative everybody was!

So of course, I'm game. For this one, I used a goth poetry generator and just inserted the appropriate line.

Untitled

the night falls as if slain by the sun, cold and alone are we.
the god for which you sacrifice yourself
flares once, then dies,
crushed by a velvet ebon nothingness.
all hope must surely perish.

your soul thrives no more.
how could you cause such hurt, you damn, dog?
demons surround us, crying out
the dog ate my mother's toes!
the dog ate my mother's toes!
we are fallen

Penned in blood by Freemont Gahan

Now, go submit yours, and come back here with the title and your pen name so I can go look it up later.

UPDATE: That was fast. You can find my poem here.