This is not the worst poem in the world

This is just a tribute

(A poem I wrote/read for the AntiSlam event at National Young Writers Festival 2022)

One of my favourite things to ask my students in a creative writing class to do is to write the worst version of something they can possibly muster

Like the worst movie the worst poem the worst version of a comic an absolute pile of dog shit beyond any redemption

I do this because in my deadshit wisdom i know it is actually hard to write bad on purpose 

Except when one of my students wrote a movie about a character called Penis Man a superhero flick set in a sperm clinic 

Except that that when i think about it again it was the best movie ever written

And it was called Penis Movie which is also the best title

Anyway, i am getting off track

but i think that asking someone to write something bad

Is like asking Beethoven to write a comeback album for the Backstreet Boys

Or telling your ex-boyfriend to be an especially bad boyfriend ahead of time 

to cum way too early

You can tell they are trying to be bad but part of you feels suspicious of how good and perfect their badness is, like it’s too intentional

Like I think that Beethoven would write a creepily good comeback album for the Backstreet Boys and they would overcome age and bad reputation and sell out operatic concert halls every night 

And i would be sure that my boyfriend was being bad just to provoke me

And something about that would make me want to stay with him out of spite

To see if he would ever admit it

The purposefulness of his shitty behaviour

Like a shit-relationship performance artist 

Anyway I was supposed to be reading bad poetry

But ive been reading for a few minutes and i still dont know what that is

Is it bad poetry to know all the lyrics to Semi-Charmed Life and then to recite them at an Antislam?

And what is an Antislam anyway? Is it the antithesis of a teenage girl slamming a door in an argument

Instead crying in her room or 

Taking up bible study to piss off her punk atheist parents

Is it bad poetry to write something at an airport on the way to a literary festival and to pass it off as something valuable and considered?

Is it good bad or bad bad or just regular bad?

I want to write something so totally of its own time it dates itself immediately

It comes out of its mother, who is your mother

It walks out of the crack of her vagina like a spider crawling out from a hole in the wall

Already sporting shoulder pads, a mullet, other era-restricted fashions

It comes out like your mother

She is very disappointed in you

And also she is a late-in-life lesbian

This poem is Married With Children

Its cringe with a cringe on top

Sat on a pile of turds

This poem is so bad it has inflated self-esteem

This poem is so bad it’s a wellness influencer

This poem is so terrible its a poom

which I’ve decided is an even worser version of this poem

This poem is the boogie man under your bed

Except he just sticks boogers underneath your bed

This poem is Cardinal George Pell

This poem is the lawyers who defended Cardinal George Pell

This poem is a moat filled with crocodiles

Who say meanspirited things behind your bed

This poem is Cruella Deville but not sexy

This poem is like pulling the hair out of the drain

But it’s Cardinal Pell’s hair

Its Cardinal Pell’s public hair.

This poem is like sitting and doing your taxes

And you don't even get a refund you have to pay a deficit or whatever its called

You have to become the tax office’s butler to pay it off 

This poem is like when your leg hair gets tangled in your tights

Or your nipple gets rubbed raw by your t-shirt

This poem is laundry day 

The poem is the dishes

This poem is angina

This poem is a dick sandwich

This poem is mastitis

This poem is public transport

This poem is this poem

And it’s really quite bad

This poem is the queen, shes crawling out of her grave and coming back from the dead to steal your shit

And i believe in the the sand beneath my toes

The beach gives a feeling, an earthy feeling

I believe in the faith that grows

And that four right chords can make me cry

When I'm with you I feel like I could die

And that would be alright, alright

And when the plane came in, she said she was crashing

The velvet it rips in the city, we tripped on the urge to feel alive

Now I'm struggling to survive

Those days you were wearing that velvet dress

You're the priestess, I must confess

Those little red panties they pass the test

Slides up around the belly, face down on the mattress

One

And you hold me, and we are broken

Still it's all that I wanna do, just a little now

Feel myself, heading off the ground

I'm scared, I'm not coming down

No, no

And I won't run for my life

She's got her jaws now locked down in a smile but nothing is alright, alright 

And I want something else to get me through this life

Baby I want something else

Not listening when you say 

Goodbye