Very Bad Poetry

I was eleven and a half the day this took place,
A time of curious splendor.
A day I grew by leaps and bounds
From the marks the Fates would render.
Fishing the worms out of the dirt,
In a shallow part of the woods by the creek
When I heard them coming, laughing and giggling,
They ran through the woods in a streak.
By streak I mean they had on no clothes,
Stark naked from their head to their feet,
Vaguely knowing what they might be up to,
I followed through the summer heat.
They stopped a little further up in the woods,
And lay right down in the grass,
My mom would have called me a peeing tom,
But this was too new to pass.
When the show was over, I ran to my house
With carnal ideas in mind,
And did certain things that puts hair on your palms
And could quite possibly make you go blind.
Afterward, I felt very uneasy,
Assailed by loads of guilt,
The morning’s activities had come and gone,
And, in their wake, left the world up tilt.
I did what always made me feel better
Whenever I had done something wrong,
Think of my Grandpa and his outstanding character,
His career, so spotless and long.
In the attic, I went through his old Army trunk
‘Cause I hadn’t done that in a while.
I pulled out all his old uniforms,
Stacked them in a neat, reverent pile.
Saw the old letters that Grandma had sent
That smelled like flowers and glue,
They all of course ended the same corny way,
“I just can’t stop missing you!” — ew!
Then, there were the ribbons and all the old manuals,
Pictures of his old flight crew,
And then — well, something I hadn’t noticed before,
A flap at the bottom under a shoe.
What I saw when I raised the flap that day,
In a minute I must’ve grown years,
And if Grandma ever knew he had things like these
It surely would’ve brought her to tears.
This picture was not of my Grandma
But another woman totally nude,
But it wasn’t the fact that this lady was naked
That made it so offensively crude.
At first I didn’t comprehend it,
Could not fathom the photographed forms,
For what she was doing to this speckled Great Dane
Stomped all over any acceptable norms.
Grandpa had stashed a whole stack away,
Under the first, I found others.
Next was the same women, this time with two men,
Who looked like identical twin brothers.
They’d contorted their bodies in impossible directions
And I could not believe my eyes,
The next one had me even more confused,
What were they doing with those two apple pies?!
The next two I can’t begin to explain,
Involving a member of the marching band,
A cat, two women, a paddle and jumper cables
And other equipment I didn’t understand.
What I learned that day at a tender age
Made life somewhat easier to bear,
Even mighty heroes of WWII
Have skeletons in their footlockers somewhere.

Robert Gregory has published another poem since joining on 27/3/09. Read more of Robert's terrible poetry at the anthology. Here are three of Robert's latest works: