Eric Jacobsen's Demented Poetry Page
If you're a little tilted and like bad poetry, you may be in the right place. An occassional pastime
of mine is writing poetry. Once in a while I'm struck by some tangient inspiration (or maybe it's just
going by and I get in the way), and out comes a poem or two. Other than that they seem to pop out, ready or not,
with enough regularity that I at least know where I last left my poetry journal.
I make, however, absolutely no claims as to the quality of these creations. One managed to win an award,
although it cost me six dollars to get in the award ceremony where I picked up my ten-dollar prize check.
A couple of others have been published here or there, and a few have gotten positive responses from friends.
As far as I know none have caused anyone to hurl, have a seizure, experience hair loss, or be expelled from
their social clubs. Mind that these are the ones I thought were better than the rest, there's some even more
awful stuff laying around, too.
The usual disclaimers apply; read at your own risk, not responsible for items left lying about, don't
try this at home, etc.
These poems are copyrighted 1980, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1997, 1998, 1999, etc., by Eric Jacobsen.
No unauthorized use or reproduction without my permission. Thanx.
(Sorry, but ya gotta do that...) And now, in alphabetical order (drumroll, please)...
- The Bitter Caterpillar Long ago I used to tutor math and
science for school children of poor families. One of my charges was a teenage girl
who was experiencing the normal emotional traumas and dilemnas that accompany the teenage
years. She would view the occassional failure as evidence that she would never amount to
much, and, despite my best efforts, remained unconvinced that you never know what can
happen if you just keep trying things. I wrote this poem on her behalf and presented it
to her. Although the poem didn't seem to change much, she did eventually outgrow the
pessimism.
- Dreaming I don't know. This is one of those that just
seemed to pop out. The idea was to try to capture the haze between the waking and
dreaming times. Sometimes when I read it I get it, sometimes I don't. Either way
I still kinda like it.
- The Good CE Having attended an engineering college, I was
exposed to the ways of those wiley and entertaining Civil Engineers. They even graded
my static analysis homework. I'd draw cartoons on the homework submissions of free-body
diagrams of horrible things happening to Civil Engineers and never one time got a response.
I started to get the impression that they were dull, humorless people, so I wrote this on
a homework assignment and handed it in. It got a single red tick mark indicating that they
had, in fact, read it. Of an entire semester of trying to get a rise out of those guys it
was this poem that earned me my single red tick mark.
- John This is a poem about my friend John Leung, who I have
lunch with fairly frequently.
- At the Lecture I was a T/A in my senior year of college and
had to sit in the back of a large lecture hall in a very early morning class while the frosh
got their morning dose of drollery. Some poor slob in the second row was living this poem,
so I wrote it down in my notebook before we left class that day.
- Lydia A once-in-a-lifetime experience, after twenty years
I was reunited with a girlfriend who I'd never really gotten over.
- My Fly It just seemed right. I have no other explanation for this.
- The Poet and the Cowbird My most sincere apologies to Edgar Allan Poe,
who was a poetic genius. That crap like this can be loosely (very loosely) inspired by such
discerning talent is, indeed, one of those tragic ironies of life. That being said, the Black
Hills Writer's Group bestowed Third Place (or was it Second?) honors on this dubious work in one
of their annual poetry contests in the early eighties. This was the only time I ever entered a
poem in a contest. They said it would've done better but it had a 'bad pentameter' in one place
that hindered it. Someday I'll write a poem about monstrous attacking pentameters that wipe out
entire races of poetry judges. That'll show 'em.
- The Cat People with cats should get this.
- The Bad Date Fortunately not from personal experience.
- Urinal Soap Cake One aspect of life as a guy.
This page last updated 7/2/18, although all I changed was this date.
If you'd like, you can go back
to my home page. If not, don't.