Bad poetry, or What I will do for money

I saw an ad on Craigslist for a card company that was looking for fresh poems for greeting and holiday cards.  There was a whole submission process involved.  It did seem to pay pretty well, so I went to their website to check out what kinds of poems made it onto their cards.  You can probably imagine the sappy verses about love feeling like the sun on your face, cream-colored ponies and crisp apple strudel.  But they said they wanted something new and different from what they had.  I wasn't sure how to proceed. 

Do I give them my best work?  Really put forth an effort?  I know you're supposed to try your best at everything you do, but I wasn't sure I wanted to give up ownership of something I was proud of.  As a friend of mine who did some ghost writing put it, "I wrote the scene and then I thought, wow, that's pretty good.  That may be the best scene I've ever written.  I don't want this guy to put his name on my best scene.  So I scaled it down a bit.  And then I scaled it down again."  Or something like that.  I didn't write it down when he was talking to me.

So that's what I decided to do.  I took some ideas that could turn into pretty decent poems, and I turned the volume waaaaaaay down.

Example (on love):
If you were a season,
you'd be the first day of summer.
If you were a city,
you'd be Paris in the spring.
If you were a holiday,
you'd be Christmas morning.
If you were a dream,
You'd be the one that came true.

I was pretty embarrassed by that, so I tempered it with this one (for encouragement):

Hero's Low

This is the part of the movie
when the hero can't see a way out.
His back is against the wall,
surrounded on all sides.
This is the point where he thinks
maybe I won't win the fight.
What if I give up, surrender?
Will it really be so bad?
But maybe the hero doesn't realize
all the people back home still believe in him.
They know he has a purpose.
All he has to do is steel himself,
and come out, guns blazing.
The cavalry is just over the ridge.

I didn't mind that one so much.  Then I tried a Christmas poem:


I imagine coming home this Christmas,
turning down the block
and passing houses, brightly lit.
It is night.  The street is silent,
the shopping over, the presents nestled
beneath the pine.
A wind stirs, prompting my excitement.
It swirls between the chimneys,
knocking snow to the white, pillowed ground.
I hum a carol as I walk up the pathway.
The smell of Christmas dinner in the air.
I move to ring the bell--
a delighted cry rings out.
Peering through the window,
there you all are,
gathered round the table,
piled high with the day's festivities.
I see your expressions of joy
and I long to hug you.
Though I cannot be there this year,
you are here with me,
in my mind and in my heart.

Yeah.  Can we just pretend that we never talked about this?