Anybody else feel like the usual poetry sites get stuck on the same dozen clichés? The really good weird stuff hides in corners where people treat it like an inside joke. I found this amazing thread on a gardening forum where members wrote botanical roasts—things like “Roses are red, soil needs tending / My love for you is never-ending / Unlike your compost pile, which frankly smells / And attracts more raccoons than wedding bells.” The combination of horticultural precision and affectionate teasing made them feel way more genuine than Hallmark stuff.
Reddit’s r/rosesarered is a mixed bag but sort by ‘top of all time’ and you’ll find some gems that twist the format for actual humor, not just bathroom joke punchlines. Tumblr tags like #weird love poems occasionally deliver surreal, short posts that feel like they’re from a specific, funny brain. The key is looking where the format gets played with by hobbyists, not where it’s presented as a finished product.
Library poetry databases sometimes list contemporary humorous verse, but you have to dig through the academic filters. I once found a digitized chapbook from a small press that had a whole section of ‘anti-valentines’ written in the roses-are-red structure. It’s out there if you’re willing to treat the search like a proper scavenger hunt.