Ramblings from the Marginalized

Way back in 1989 my friend Kristin gave me a purple writing journal with a padded jacket. Inside she put a short inscription:

Steve (Disco-Man)
Now isn't this nicer than a notebook?
Remember O-T-H-E-R
- Kristin (Lucretia)
Xmas 1989
P.S. - I want to see this book in 1999!

I was not able to show her the book in 1999 but that is a story for a different day.

I never did fill the entirety of the book but I did fill about half of it. See, when I wrote in High School I used a beat up canvas style notebook. The pages were all three-hole punched and there were a few pockets inside. The cover had a bunch of short quotes and small doodles on it. It was called The Book of the Disco-Man after a nickname I acquired in the same High School.

No, it was not a nickname earned for my dancing abilities (of which I have none) but from a mispronunciation of my last name. Many other people in school also had nicknames given by the same person. They were never mean or bad nicknames, they were just names that this one person used to better remember who everyone was.

The purple book was titled "The Book of the Disco-Man Volume II" and I'm going to print the first bad poem I wrote in it here. I will then follow up with more bad poetry from this forgotten book.

Poem of the First Part

It's raining in my closet
    and it's snowing in my shoes.
I can't get a date
    so I'm singing the blues.
My left side's cold
    and my right side's hot.
I've got countless scars
    from all the battles I've fought.
Split in half
    and torn asunder
are some of the pains
    my brain is under.
'Cause I've got a headache
    that really hurts a lot.
From trying to think of poems
    to fill this book I just got!

- 2/16/90 2:59 PM My Room

There you have it, some bad poetry. Stay tuned for more bad poems!

A long long time ago, back when I was in high school, I began writing bad poetry. Today (and in the coming weeks) I will be sharing this bad poetry with all of you.

This one is the first one I ever wrote. I wrote while serving "in-school suspension". Unlike a regular suspension this form of punnishment had to be served while in school! I think I got this because I was tardy to many times... Yep, me the straight A student who routinely scored 100's on his report cards and ruined the "grading on a curve" system for all of the other kids was habitualy tardy at school.

Well, here it is:

Acid Man
Here I sit, with strange thoughts
thinking of who I am not.
I see strange things through inverted eyes,
they leave me almost hypnotized.
And still I wander,
I wander on,
never knowing quite what's going on

Yeah, I know the grammer and punctuation are probably terrible but I'm working from memory here as I'm not certain where the original of this piece currently resides. I know my book is somewhere in my attic...

Oh yes, I was inspired to share this bad poetry with you after Ms. Q brought this up on her blog with her Let's get poetic meme post.