What was the last message received from the Challenger?
The teacher saying "What's this button for?"
[Space Shuttle Challenger was lost in an explosion as it took off from Cape Canaveral on January 28, 1986, killing all seven people on board, including the first
civilian in space, a high school teacher.]
What's light brown and furry with four legs and could
have changed the course of human history?
A dingo in Bethlehem.
[On the night of 17 August, 1980. Lindy Chamberlain
reported that her child, Azaria, had been taken from her
tent by a dingo.]
What's red and white and flies across the water at 400 miles an hour?
Lord Mountbatten's sandshoe.
[On 27 August 1979 in County Sligo, Republic of Ireland,
Prince Philip's uncle Louis Mountbatten was killed by an IRA bomb while aboard his private yatch.]
Have you heard Osama Bin Laden was innocent?
Yes, video has emerged of several dingos boarding flights 11, 93, 77 and 175
[The September 11 attacks were a series of coordinated suicide attacks allegedly by al-Qaeda upon the United States on September 11, 2001.]
Pavarotti arrives in heaven and bumps in to Princess Diana. He says "Hey Di, I notice you've got a halo, how do I go about getting one of those?".
Diana replies "fuck off you fat twat, it's a steering wheel"
[On 31 August 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales, died as a result of injuries sustained in a car collision in the Pont de l'Alma road tunnel in Paris, France.]
Did you hear the one about the death cries of a small blue-green planet on an outer arm of the Milky Way?
[No-one was left to hear the punchline]
Comments
Jess
A couple of these are funny as hell, and the rest are as funny as a dingo in the yard
These are my favorite; dingo in Beth, pavarotti and the steering wheel!
That some funny shit. There good jokes that people might consider in bad taste, not I funny is funny
Eddie C.
ok, Eddie,
but what about the punchline of the poem?
Jess
It didn't work for me, because it was English humor, that to me as an American it's to cut and dry.
Maybe no one is listening. Hahaha!
Eddie C.
ah, I see
"a small blue-green planet on an outer arm of the Milky Way" is Earth.
Jesus Christ
You see what I mean, it's English humor if you have to google the punchline. To intellectual for me.
LMAO. Now that's funny googling a joke to find the humor in it . Give me a fucking break!
EC.
It's not English, Eddie
If you thought about it, what planet would you think I was referring to?
Jess
To our planet obviously, but for me the via you used is in the british humor, again to intellectual for me. I don;t want to search for the punshline. I want to see it and laugh.
But I will give you bad taste and all, it has it's funny points. I understand the geist of it or rather your purpose, but I think a re-write is in order. if you look Shirley kind of miss the point and how many other will. This is good stuff, but if the point is missed, how good is it really! that's my take on it.
EC
try to please all...
try to please all...
Jess
My friend, it's not about pleasing all, fuck that, it's about clarity. you said that to me about two years ago. I now believe that, if you post something it's not for yourself. it's to be read and get your point across. Clarity in your writing, you taught me that. So am I to assume you don't believe that anymore, I think not.
EC
Fair enough, but that's not the only issue here
Some people would get this, others wouldn't, ok. I think it is clear enough for enough people to get it. I regularly get my poems read outside Neopoet and most people I've shown it to have grasped it immediately. In fact only you and Shirley seem to have a problem with that.
The other issue is "niceness". And on that I won't budge. Poetry doesn't have to be nice, especially when it is attempting to make a strong point. And especially not to critics who only appreciate niceness. Check the Revisions, I have tried to make this clearer.
If this was just about telling bad taste jokes what was the point of the very factually stated historical contexts in brackets?
This poem is not just gratuitously telling bad jokes.
Shirley
You just earn all my respect, by voicing how you feel. Good for you!
EC
Bravo Shirley!
I don't think I've ever heard you give real crit before. (it was the reason for our difference).
Well deserved here and well put.
What do you think of the new title? And how do you think I should be clearer or expand more on the punchline?
Oh dear Shirley, I take it back.
You completely missed the point. These bad taste jokes get told after every horrific event. It is part of peoples way of dealing. Not in a healthy way. A form of denial. Denial is also killing the planet. There, I've spelled it out for you.
Most of these type of jokes are really appalling but some are bloody funny, I especially love the dingo in Bethlehem one.
and an honest reaction
is always appreciated
hello
Even as a free verse this lacks flow. Also the intended message seems unclear and indeed random. Perhaps this would be better as a "classic" write. The preceeding was an example of droll southern humor or sarcasm lmao.............stan
perhaps a ballad?
perhaps a ballad?
ok
ok
LOL
I stole the diana one...too funny
And now
that my crass Aussieness has had a good laugh, the point of it all is humans make mockery out of disasters, it happens a mere nanosecond after the event and perhaps the best part of that is that we can laugh at ourselves no matter what, least 'most' of us can. The earth imploding is the mere fact that all of this way we treat life and the planet and peoples can come back to bite us, but I do think laughter can sometimes be the only medicine we have that keeps us here for the time being.
so true chez
I heard the first Challenger joke minutes after it was reported, a workmate came back with morning smoko and said "They've already announced the date of the next launch"
"Bullshit!" we said
"Yup, 4th of July"
And laughter can be so serious.
Yeah mine was the same
I was informed KFC had come out with a shuttle pack "one piece of chicken and 7 burnt chips"
Jess
LMFAO, now that's funny going up like a roman candle. I never heard that one before.
Eddie C.
Now everytime I think of NASA I'll think of you. Hahaha!
It could be an Aussie cultural thing, Eddie,
Certainly all the Aussies who have read this poem have laughed, somewhat cringingly of course, and grasped it immediately.
Meow and Matt even called it a fucking good poem.
Glad to see it stirs up feelings anyway, even if it is shock value.
Humour...
... is subjective and largely cultural. This is 'sick' humour (I'm not being judgmental, simply putting it in its genre). I would expect people in some cultures (Brit? Aussie?) to laugh or groan, and people in some other cultures (American?) to say "WTF?"
Is this a poem? I guess it is if you, the writer, say it is. It certainly is a piece of writing with a point. It uses the sick jokes as a device to take us down to the end to a serious point - the ultimate sick joke without a punchline, you could say. I can see by the comments above that it has been controversial, and that you have had to explain it. Well, there's nothing wrong with the purpose of a poem being a little arcane, but perhaps if this is supposed to be very obvious and in-your-face it has missed the outside edge of the bat on the way to the keeper.
Ah, thanks Marie,
I've been noticing your intelligent comments on other poems and hoped you would get to mine.
I agree with all you say, and yes it is only a poem by the largest possible extension of the term however I feel it has hit "sufficient" mark. Not a six or a four, perhaps a run snuck in on a by. That will do. I don't aim for the sky all the time, or even much of it, and especially with a piece that relies so much on shock value.
I have actually, forgive my shallowness, deferred approaching "The lament of Maria Maresciallo at the funeral of Veronica Franco" because I was un-attracted to the title. It is worth considering the value of titles though, don't you think?
Ah Jess
The title might be long but if you defer you will be missing out in my opinion, Marie is quite the author and I have always found her poetry to be an intricate balance of fact and fiction that is well worth perusing, but I am a fan and have been for a few years since knowing her.
No wuzzas
I'm on my way
"Every move I make...
... is carefully planned!" :-D
you go girl
with your bad self
Eddie C.
I think it's seriously,
I think it's seriously funny, i care about our planet but not one jot about them. I'm sure they would not know or care about me or mine. And it's poetry to my ears. Regards Roscoe...
ta Roscoe
but not clear who you don't give a jot about, the victims of the jokes?
The only victimless joke I know is:
Why do little ducks walk softly?
Because they can't walk hardly.
[although this could be criticised for insensitively mocking walking-challenged ducklings]
Hi Jess
These are funny jokes, I laughed at all of them, I like sick humor. Particularly the steering wheel thing.
But calling them poetry is kind of a stretch, I think. You just sneak by, imo, with the last one.
There's no continuity between the jokes, each one is disjointed from all the others, making the whole simply a collection of disparate pieces, imo. There's nothing to connect them except their sick-joke nature, and that isn't a strong enough connection, to me. And there's no build up, no increase in intensity or focus, to the final one, they all are just there. The punchline at the end is good, but it just doesn't bring any of the other pieces together with any real coherence, and leaves whatever meaning gleaned from the last line hanging, with no framework to build any impact around.
And I would have thought the last joke was the funniest joke, not the worst, lol.
yeah, it's a bit of a Jeffrey Archer piece,
I guess I could improve it by interspersing the gallows jokes with made-up ones with social value, but frankly I couldn't be bothered.
In fact I would consider deleting it except the responses were kind of interesting.
Would have made
a great blog page, this kind of thing can create discussion for months.
It took me...
a couple of minutes to get it, but then I tumbled to it. The funniest joke of all, was the last one! I just hope that when all is said and done, that the joke won't be on us! ~ Gee
thanks mate
looking forward to joining you on the darkside soon.