The Dead Horse Lament

by Pa Rock
Wordsmith

My friend Bruce sent out email invitations to his big birthday bash that will be held somewhere on a creek bank in the Ozarks. It will be a drunken affair with booze supplied by the host and supplemented by BYOB. Gifts are discouraged because Bruce figures that with all of the drinking and debauchery they will probably wind up being thrown in the river anyway.

Bruce is a fan (as am I) of The Restaurant at the End of the Universe series of books by the late Douglas Adams. Adams had an interest in bad poetry and at times cited the alien Vogons whom he credited as being the third worst poets in the universe. Bruce included some of his own Vogon poetry in the email invitation, and identified a page on the Internet that is home to a Vogon poetry generator.

The following is my own sample of Vogon poetry which was created by myself and the Vogon Poem Generator.

The Dead Horse Lament

See, see the feisty sky
Marvel at its big burnt persimmon depths.
Tell me, Salvador do you
Wonder why the mangy dog ignores you?
Why its foobly stare
makes you feel cranky.
I can tell you, it is
Worried by your phallotragic facial growth
That looks like
A defeated mushroom.
What's more, it knows
Your horehound potting shed
Smells of scallions.
Everything under the big feisty sky
Asks why, why do you even bother?
You only charm dead horses.

Perhaps now you can understand why Vogon poetry is the third worst in the universe! The generator may be accessed at www.bbc.co.uk/cult/hitchhikers/vogonpoetry/lettergen.shtml