Why You Should Write a Poem
Written by The Artist Formerly Known as CPTCrunch

Why can't you write a poem?
"Oh, I'm no good at that," you say.
Well, I'm not exactly Percy Shelley
(who by the way was a very famous British poet
but who cares, really?)
but here I am,
writing a poem.

Granted, this poem sucks
like a Hoover? brand vacuum cleaner
But the point is, it's a poem.
Why?
Because I SAID it's a poem.
It's a common misconception
that poems have to rhyme
and be full of big fancy words.
Well, I don't know about you
but trying to read those old Shakespearean poems
is like trying to cut down a hickory tree
with a rusty butter knife.

But the important thing is
that I'm using nifty metaphors,
and also I'm splitting it all up into lines
so it looks real nice
The nice thing about poetry is
that like art, it can be anything you want it to be.
It's like wandering around an art museum
and seeing something that looks like a helicopter crash
or a construction accident
or somebody shooting a paintball gun at a white canvas
but it's art
simply because the artist SAYS it's art
and you just have to accept it.
Poetry's the same way.
If you don't understand that,
that's too bad
cause I'm out of metaphors
for this block of the poem,
which by the way is way too long.

So the next time you sit around
thinking "gee, I'd LOVE to help starmen.net out
and write a poem
but I just can't write poetry"
Remember that your warped thinking is like
a vast, boundless expanse
of nothing.
If you listen closely,
you can hear that little thought
rattling around inside your head
like a BB in an empty tunafish can.

I wrote this poem,
which is an absolute masterpiece,
(because I SAID SO and you just better accept it)
after going 34 hours or so without any sleep
and I wrote the whole thing in 15 minutes.
So you can definitely write something
that sucks just as much
and yet is like a baby bird
that falls out of its nest
and is immediately picked up by a six year old child.
God alone knows what that child will do to that bird,
but we hope the end comes quickly for it.
And so it is for your poetry and mine.
And remember,
your poem should definitely have a snappy ending
unlike this one.