Bridge to Nowhere

This entry is part 1 of 40 in the series Bridge to Nowhere: poems at mid-life

bridge to nowhere

Bridge to nowhere:
tree roots dangle
into the abyss

Teens spray-paint the year
they hope to graduate
then huff the rest

A friend says:
there is no way to the father
but through the highway

A gay prostitute
stands in the river & flashes
passing trucks

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About Dave Bonta

Dave Bonta (bio) crowd-sources his problems by following his gut, which he shares with one quadrillion of his closest microbial friends --- a tight-knit, symbiotic community comprising some 500 different species of bacteria, fungi, and protozoa.
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12 Responses to Bridge to Nowhere

  1. Dave says:

    Thanks to frequent VN commenter Bill Knight for the quote in the third stanza (a response to my Morning Porch post on Facebook).

  2. Peter says:

    The second stanza is striking.

    And amen to stanza three! At least, I wish I were far enough along that highway to know what I was talking about.

  3. Alan Gregory says:

    A favorite, rediscovered in a new Adirondacks book:
    “In June, as many as a dozen species may burst their buds on a single day. No man can heed all of these anniversaries; no man can ignore all of them: – Aldo Leopold on orchids

  4. Pingback: The End of the West, by Michael Dickman | Via Negativa

  5. t says:

    I liked this: “A gay prostitute / stands in the river”

  6. James says:

    I like the way each of these images play together, the way I can sense several different meanings of ‘bridge’ in each of them. And the picture is beautiful.

    • Dave says:

      Thanks. It’s probably useful for me to do these kinds of exercises in which the connections between stanzas aren’t explicitly spelled out. Helps to combat my natural tendency toward didacticism.

  7. howie good says:

    tough little poem that knows where it’s going

  8. Beth says:

    You gonna write more of these sometime?

    • Dave Bonta says:

      I’m trying, but you know, now that I’ve declared it a series, it ain’t as easy! Writing more bestiary poems is actually a higher priority, but…