Poem The News: Drunk Driving, Facebook & Emoticons
By Mason Johnson
To stave of that I-want-to-drive-off-a-cliff boredom that ensnares us all before the weekend, I decided to ask readers to submit poems based off some of our news stories. I hope they make your work day at least a little more entertaining.
Find out how to submit your own poems below. Read more "Poem the News" poems here.
I use facebook for three things: to stalk people, annoy people by inviting them to events they don't want to go to and...
... Did I already say "stalk people"? Seriously. I'm talkin', like, huddled-over-my-computer-in-the-dark-pawing-at-my-screen-as-I-go-through-their-photos-breathing-harder-and-harder-like-I-have-asthma-but-I-don't-have-asthma stalk.
But that's legal! Never have I admitted to breaking the law on FB.
This week's Poem the News article is "Ore. Teen Charged After 'Drivin Drunk' Facebook Post On New Year's Eve." My favorite three submissions are below. My comments are italicized. Enjoy.
Let There Be Poems
There Once Was a Drunk Kid from Oregon by Keith Ecker
Jacob Cox-Brown
Was sporting a frown
Shortly after New Year's Day
For the young Oregonian
Got a lesson one morning
After a Facebook post went astray
"Drivin drunk....classsic"
Not a very smart tactic
To post for your 600 friends to see
Your buds turned you in
How the police must have grinned
To close a case so easily
Remember now kids
This social media biz
Can be used against you at trial
It's called electronic discovery
Through data recovery
And could result in jail time for awhile
A+ Superb! I forgot poems could rhyme.
Please Tell Me Why, My Cox-Brown by David Tomaloff
where are you tonight, my Cox-Brown?
has the moon caught your eye, or are you
weaving drunkenly—
thumb pressing
sweetly its weight
into the send button of your iDevice?
& where will you be, my Cox-Brown,
when the sun rushes its way to my face
& casually comes on to greet me?
please tell me why, my Cox-Brown,
for this solitude,
like the jailhouse
that would
keep your sweet thumb from facebook
never tonight to poke me at mine.
A- Fist bump! It would have been an A+, but something is unsettling about you, David. I'm not sure what. You're like that guy at work who everyone likes just fine, but they never eat lunch with him cause he chews with his mouth open.
Do you chew with your mouth open, David?
Wyatt Sparks
Cox-Brown, who has more than 650 Facebook friends,
YOU should have been more careful
YOU should have dialed it down a notch
YOU should have burned the car to hide the crime and kept your friends warm for months
YOU should have picked up the little plastic bits from the accident
YOU should have admitted without all the evidence or you shouldn't
YOU should wait for my car in the side of your house next new year
YOU should wait for my call about the accident
YOU should know it will never come
A- Yeah! STOP TELLING ME WHAT TO DO.
Submit
These poems were great, and only scared me a little bit! Thanks guys.
For next week, let's go with a romantic article: "Man Gets 10-Year Sentence For Handcuffing Himself To Female Taco Bell Co-Worker In Hope Of Getting A Date."
Email poems based on that AMAZING news article to mason.johnson@CBSRadio.com. I'll pick 3 out of the batch to post. Email them no later than Friday, January 18th 9am CST. Realize that the only payment is the fame that comes with being published by the prestigious poetry organization that is CBS.
Mason Johnson, CBS Chicago
