a poem i wrote
April 13, 2003 03:50 PM

There are many reasons I don't like poetry much. The greatest of these is that a lot of people write poetry as bad, or as pretentious, as mine.

Not to say there are no great poets. But the prevalence of bad poetry tends to overwhelm the good. Until the very word "poetry" makes you just a bit ill. A bit wary.

Or, it can make you giggle. Like this, a poem I wrote rather a long time ago:
objectivist and pagan union
drunk, so cozy, on salt
see midgard, bleeding maori
see galt
see 17 choices of death between home and home
newton moves us
and the sun cycles
ringing epiphanies each time we meet

This is - and you'd never guess it - I think a poem about the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel. Seventeen snaky miles over salt water.

Could I have squeezed any more opaque references into those few lines?

Sometimes you have to laugh at yourself.