Fringe Magazine - Issue 6 Archive

Issue 6: November 2006.
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Home > Issue 6: November 2006 > Longer Poetry

The Alaskan Bridge to Nowhere
by Brad Johnson

There’s not much here but fireweed
            and wild salmonberries
and now we’ve got that growing heap
           of rusted, unused ferries,
but you won’t see it after dark
           and the sun will set by noon.
So, we’ll take the Alaskan Bridge to Nowhere
           and we’ll get to nowhere soon.

Every summer, we’ll chop our wood
            and in the winter watch it burn.
In the coming years, we’ll re-elect
           Don Young to another term.
Who knows, we might end up in some
           Robert Service saloon
when we take the Alaskan Bridge to Nowhere.
           We’ll get to nowhere soon.

We’ll can tomatoes after lunch
            and darn our socks at night.
When we drive out to the boonies under
           the wispy Northern Lights,
the moon will be almost hidden
           like a shiny, lost doubloon
and we’ll take the Alaskan Bridge to Nowhere
           so we’ll get to nowhere soon.

We’ll have to wash the cuts we get
            hiking through the kettles
out by the airport runway where
            an airplane sometimes settles.
It’s still hard to see a spouting whale
           and not reach for a harpoon.
When we take the Alaskan Bridge to Nowhere,
           we’ll get to nowhere soon.

We have to import paper towels
            and our canned goods come by freight.
There’s many things they don’t know about us
           down in the lower forty-eight.
When the Savannah Sparrow tsip-tsips
           its endangered tattoo,
we’ll take the Alaskan Bridge to Nowhere
           and we’ll get to nowhere soon.

Our troops may need more Kevlar vests
            and more Abrams tanks,
yet we got 300 million dollars
           and we have Don Young to thank.
Even though New Orleans drowned
           that August afternoon,
we’ll take the Alaskan Bridge to Nowhere
           and we’ll get to nowhere soon.
We’ll take the Alaskan Bridge to Nowhere
           and we’ll get to nowhere soon.

Author's Note
"Dubbed the ‘Bridge to Nowhere,’ the bridge in Alaska would connect the town of Ketchikan (population 8,900) with its airport on the Island of Gravina (population 50) at a cost to federal taxpayers of $320 million, by way of three separate earmarks in the recent highway bill. At present, a ferry service runs to the island, but some in the town complain about its wait (15 to 30 minutes) and fee ($6 per car).”

—Ronald D. Utt, Ph.D. “The Bridge to Nowhere: A National Embarrassment,” The Heritage Foundation