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
OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES
- Bridge to Nowhere
- Natural Faculties
- (Re-)Claiming the Body
- Ceiling snakes
- Train Song
- Surgery of the Absurd
- Notes toward a taxonomy of sadness
- Weeding
- Blanket
- Forecast
- Curriculum Vitae
- Lullaby
- Fist
- On Reading The Separate Rose by Pablo Neruda
- Gibbous
- Song of the Millipede
- Autumn haibun
- Bread & Water
- Jersey Shore
- Initiation
- October dusk
- Goodnight moon
- Antidote
- The Starlings
- To the Child I Never Had
- Ambitions
- Learn Harmonica Today
- Two-line haiku
- Sleeper Cell
- Unchurched
- Turnips
- Homiletics
- Magic Carpet
- When the Wind is Southerly
- Connection
- Ground Beetle
- Étude for the World’s Smallest Violin
Thanks to frequent VN commenter Bill Knight for the quote in the third stanza (a response to my Morning Porch post on Facebook).
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.
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
I liked this: “A gay prostitute / stands in the river”
(o)
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.
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.
tough little poem that knows where it’s going
Thanks, Howie. Glad you liked.
You gonna write more of these sometime?
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…