The Bridge Poem by Herbert Nehrlich

The Bridge

Rating: 4.0


It was the same each time,
a ghost must live beneath,
that bridge of stone, stained
by a ton of droppings,
seagulls and frigate birds,
out of their territory, shouting
and frolicking, bad-mouthing
dugongs and fishes, loudly.

I should have listened to
my thoughts and fears,
before that fateful day.
When thirty tons of stone
all stained, and to the laughter
of gulls and frigate birds
fell into the stormy sea.
And they, without excuse,
took me.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Mike Finley 29 March 2006

I like this. It has a hapless fatalism about it that puts the reader into a brief spell. Confusion: is the speaker someone who was standing on the bridge when it collapsed? I'm not always good at parsing obvious things like that.

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Theorem Thetruthserum 05 September 2005

Very good use the almighty metaphor....good stuff.

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Mahnaz Zardoust-Ahari 05 September 2005

Nicely written....you gave me chills.

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Michael Gessner 05 September 2005

The metaphor of the bridge gathers the authority of the poem. In itself this is rare, and because of it, the poem is genuine, original, and compelling.

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Raynette Eitel 05 September 2005

Is this your epitaph, Herbert? Good poem, but they'll have trouble carving all of it into the stone. Raynette

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