I promised I would write a poem
for every town I stopped in
along my ten thousand mile journey
towards home
but, you see, I'm not in New York City
right now
I'm not in Baltimore or Myrtle Beach
I haven't gotten to Charleston, yet
and Sayre, Pennsylvania - that beautiful
town of broken cars and motor oil angels
nestled like heaven amid hills and trees and nothing -
Sayre is long behind me
I can't tell you yet
about the sunrise in Savannah
or the sunset through the smog
of Gary, Indiana
or Los Angeles
I can't tell you because

I'm in New Jersey
and New Jersey is not worthy
of my poetry
she is not deserving
of the verse I could write
or the rhymes that have been written
everything I could say
has been said already by Dr. Paterson
anyway
the sunsets here do not inspire
and the stars are drowned
by the crowded, dizzy streets
so how do you expect me
to write a poem about this?
aside from, perhaps,
a few choice poetic phrases
about the smell
that maybe Shakespeare wrote
about his beloved Thames
in London in the summertime
transported four hundred years to the Passaic
"O ye rank and malodarous spirit!
You foul perverter of botanical aromas!
Who fills the lungs with such filth
As to wrack e'en hagborn Caliban!"

I will not waste my ink
on this shrine to Moloch
Moloch whose armpit is New Jersey
Moloch whose shattered mind is stared at
endlessly for thirty seconds at a time
twenty four hours a day
on five hundred channels
I will not destroy the innocence
of virgin paper to satiate the twisted ego
of New Jersey
land of spoiled milk
land of sour honey
no chosen people crossed the Delaware
to enter her
and as I gaze at her crone teeth
and she stares back with crone eyes
I dare not wonder what eldritch poems
spill from her lips
when poets wander lost on her shores
and listen to her music

08/06/2002

Posted on 08/06/2002
Copyright © 2025 Gary Hoffmann