The Bridgiest Muse: What more Brooklyn Bridge Poetry, Part II & Final & Cock-&-Bull!

This website was nearly rent irreparably after a filthy political cleavage & rap-warfare, a few months ago. After hip-hop legend William McGonagall, famed bard of the Tay Bridge in Dundee, dissed:

The New Yorkers boast about their Brooklyn Bridge,
But in comparison to thee it seems like a midge,
Because thou spannest the Silvery Tay
A mile and more longer I venture to say;
Besides the railway carriages are pulled across by a rope,
Therefore Brooklyn Bridge cannot with thee cope;

Brooklynites didn't take this well, & for months it raged back & forth with odes & tight lyrics & nasty radio smear attacks. NOW! When we thought the issue had been resolved by popular election, the Huffington Post goes & publishes a completely one-sided unbalanced article about Brooklyn Bridge poetry, with NOT ONE MENTION of Dundee's famous bridge. And the media gives this a free pass.

It may seem odd for a bridge to be a focal point for poetry, but the Brooklyn Bridge has inspired a remarkable number of good (and some great) poems. The Russian Futurist Vladimir Mayakovsky was moved when he first saw it in 1925, as he described in his poem "Brooklyn Bridge:"

...it stretches on cables of string
to the feet of the stars.

I stare
as an eskimo gapes at a train,
I seize on it
as a tick fastens to an ear.
Brooklyn Bridge--
yes....
That's quite a thing!

At the time of Mayakovsky's visit, the American poet Hart Crane was writing his great poem "The Bridge." Crane lived, for a while, in an apartment overlooking the East River, and in his visionary mind the Brooklyn Bridge became a springboard to the spiritual. Here's an excerpt from the opening:

O harp and altar, of the fury fused,
(How could mere toil align thy choiring strings!)
Terrific threshold of the prophet's pledge,
Prayer of pariah, and the lover's cry,--

Again the traffic lights that skim thy swift
Unfractioned idiom, immaculate sigh of stars,
Beading thy path--condense eternity:
And we have seen night lifted in thine arms.

Under thy shadow by the piers I waited;
Only in darkness is thy shadow clear.
The City's fiery parcels all undone,
Already snow submerges an iron year . . .

In 1956, the beat poet Jack Kerouac celebrated the bridge in another visionary poem (Kerouac's visions may have had a little...help) called "The Brooklyn Bridge Blues":

I looked at the red winter
disgusting dusk of the world,
saw the alleys beyond,
Brooklyn, Wolfe's redbrick
jungle (that I'd only
last night walkt, unto
Gowanus Cana!)----O!
--& I remembered the dreams
the dreams about racks
and Joan Adams and drear
and a tear appeared
in my eye over the river
on the Bridge of Sights
that as soon as I'd
(c r o c o d i l e)
crossed it, had taken
me to the shore
I was looking for!
Svaha! I am
the perfect man
the Buddha of This World

In case you're new to the Beats, you shouldn't worry if the poem doesn't make total sense. You might want to worry (c r o c o d i l e) if it does.

Oh, it makes perfect sense to us, HUFFINGTON POST! You go & lick your bridge on its central girders. "I seize on it as a tick fastens to an ear." Disgusting. True poets know a real bridge when they look on it in so grand array.

Hip-Hop Legend William McGonagall Returns: The Tay Bridge Disaster

As everyone by now knows, William McGonagall is a nineteenth century rapper. Considered Britain's Worst Poet, he is fastly being revalued as a revolutionary futurist emcee. In collaboration with Gold Diamonds, another track from the forthcoming hip-hop album about bridges, specifically the Tay Bridge near by Dundee. This song predates the New Tay bridge's construction & dedication (listen here & here) memorializing the windy destruction of the great Old Tay Bridge. 1879!!!

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

'Twas about seven o'clock at night,
And the wind it blew with all its might,
And the rain came pouring down,
And the dark clouds seem'd to frown,
And the Demon of the air seem'd to say-
"I'll blow down the Bridge of Tay." [...]

Read the rest of the original poem here. Download this mp3 here. More hip-hop from the itwaslost.org community webloggists here.

TAY BRIDGE, SCHMAY BRIDGE

While visiting the city (nearby Dundee), Ulysses S. Grant commented that the Tay Bridge was "a big bridge for a small city".

BY THE WAY, AMERICA. ABE LINCOLN was just numeraled #1 president of ALL TIME.

YOU KNOW WHO Abe Lincoln REALLY LIKED?

ULYSSES S. GRANT! (american hero who has a good eye for bridge environment aesthetics)

You know who the Tay Bridge likes?

SECRET DEATH

"Tay Bridge" was the codename for the funeral plans for Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother.

WE CANNOT TRUST SECRET DEATH AND WE CANNOT TRUST THE TAY BRIDGE!

Based on my not knowing if the Brooklyn Bridge has been refurbished and my stubborn belief that a TRUE AMERICAN BRIDGE could and would never need to be refurbished, I am betrayed by the Tay bridge (a refurbished bridge).

In 2003, a £20.85 million strengthening and refurbishment project on the bridge won the British Construction Industry Civil Engineering Award, in consideration of the staggering scale and logistics involved. More than 1,000 tonnes of bird droppings were scraped off the ironwork lattice of the bridge using hand tools, and bagged into 25 kg sacks.

PORK BRIDGE SPENDING. IS A REFURBISHED BRIDGE THE SAME BRIDGE?

WHO IS THE "TAY" BRIDGE?

WHY DOES IT NEED REFURBISHING?

Does the Brooklyn Bridge need refurbishing?
Not as far as I know.
Probably not.

Check this out. At the time of the Brooklyn Bridge's completion, the first and last names of the President of the USA and the New York Mayor, individually, were slant rhymes!

President Chester Arthur and New York Mayor Franklin Edson


hm... Queen Elizabeth

Also,

George Parker (1870 – 1936) was one of the most audacious con men in American history. He made his living selling New York's public landmarks to unwary tourists. His favorite object for sale was the Brooklyn Bridge, which he sold twice a week for years.

And it doesn't stop there:

Other public landmarks he sold included the original Madison Square Garden, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Grant's Tomb and the Statue of Liberty. George had many different methods for making his sales. When he sold Grant's Tomb, he would often pose as the general's grandson.

George Parker, Ulysses S. Grant, Abe Lincoln, Brooklyn Bridge, America.

DO WE WANT A refurbished, secret death UNAMERICAN Bridge?

NO!
WE WANT THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE.

Crickets & Rats on the Brooklyn Bridge

I notice it's been a week since my political attack ad hit the radio waves - the Brooklyn Bridge: IS IT LONG ENOUGH? And yet, I haven't heard a peep from Brooklyn.

The rap battle between the New Tay Bridge & the Brooklyn Bridge can be traced to several "hip-hop" songs, all available in our 2009 debut EP, rap songs about bridges, from bridges, for bridges. They are here.

I mention this all, because I have added a poll to the lefthand sidebar, just below the tweetosphere feed, to get a feel for how the electorate is responding to the attacks, before the 2009 election. James Carville worries that William McGonagall's negatives may have been ratcheted way up after all the radio spots, but we're in crunch time here Turd Blossom.

Our friend Dr Eley-Nelson was kind enough to e-mail this doggerel in support of our hip-hop work set to classic bad 19th Century poetry about bridges:

From: "Dr. ___ Nelson" _____@gmail.com

To: "James Welsch" _@itwaslost.org
Subject: Benefactum

Nice work. I'm sure McGonagall's spirit is suffused with warm well being. Or rather,

James Welsch, you have to music put
A poem about trains and their attendant soot
Or rather of the bridge's o'er which they roll
Which strikes this writer as being rather droll
Your take on the work of William McGonagall
Will surely be well received by all.

Brooklyn Bridge Attack Ad: "BUT IS IT LONG ENOUGH??"

D.B. Steinem says his Brooklyn Bridge is the "fulfillment of an artists dream."

But do the facts check out!!??

At fifty-nine hundred feet long, the so-called BROOKLYN bridge stretches almost five thousand feet shorter than the beautiful NEW TAY RAIL BRIDGE in Dundee.

Is that long enough for America?

At 10,710 feet, the New Tay Bridge is the longest railway bridge of the present day.

William Topaz McGonagall wrote that the beautiful New Tay Bridge is "strong enough all windy storms to defy".

Can we even trust the Brooklyn Bridge to stand up to the wimpiest little gale?
Can America risk finding out?

Doing the most basic investigation on the Brooklyn Bridge on the WIKIPEDIA, we learned that suspension bridge-making pioneer John A. Roebling, whilst surveying for the Brooklyn Bridge, got his foot "badly injured by a ferry, pinning it against a pylon; within a few weeks, he died of tetanus." What's the matter, John A. Roebling, jaw too LOCKED UP to complete the Brooklyn Bridge? Succeeding him, his son Washington Roebling, came down with a little case of THE BENDS. Does this sound like confident leadership to you, or does it sound like typical New York politics, typical Kennedyesque nepotism? LOCKJAW? DECOMPRESSION SICKNESS? That doesn't sound like competent bridgebuilding, that sounds like DEAD bridgebuilding.

"Besides," says William Topaz McGonagall, "the railway carriages [on the beautiful NEW TAY BRIDGE] are pulled across by a rope, / Therefore Brooklyn Bridge cannot with thee cope."

...is it long enough?...
...wimpiest little gale...
...typical Kennedyesque nepotism...

Sorry, D.B. Steinem, the fulfillment of the artist's dream was built in Dundee in 1883.

Vote NEW TAY BRIDGE in 2009.
Strong enough for Dundee.
Strong enough for America.

FOUND! Rare take of New Tay Bridge by McGonagall Sister and Brother-In-Law

Didn't Hear a Peep from the New Tay Bridge

Unearthed: D.B. Steinman Records Rap Track Regarding Bridge Design and Beauty Before McGonagall, Before His Own Birth!

More William Topaz McGonagall & also The Royal Thibaw Min, Golden-footed Lord of the White Elephant, Master of a Thousand Gold Umbrellas...

Mr Mary & I were doing some research for our William McGonagall project today, & happened upon some interesting history. First of all, it turns out our idea of throwing a McGonagall supper is already a tradition in Dundee. "The William Topaz McGonagall Appreciation Society held a McGonagall Supper on board the frigate Unicorn on 12 June 1997, during which the courses were allegedly served in reverse order, starting with the coffee and ending with the starters. A short play was performed by local actors."

Sadly the William Topaz McGonagall Appreciation Society's website is down, but I sent an e-mail to the person responsible, asking a few questions about the itineraries & rituals for a McGonagall Supper, & what the significance of June 12th is - I think September 28th, the day of McGonagall's death, might be as good of a night as any. If anyone out there reading this knows anything, please contact me! o [[at]] itwaslost.org.

Then, there are some amazing bits in McGonagall's wiki-biography (the whole thing is worth reading here.) My favorite was his production of Macbeth where "McGonagall believed that the actor playing Macduff was trying to upstage him, and so refused to die."

Then there's this mysterious tidbit:

In 1892, following the death of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, he walked from Dundee to Balmoral, a distance of about 60 miles over mountainous terrain and through a violent thunderstorm, "wet to the skin", to ask Queen Victoria if he might be considered for the post of Poet Laureate. Unfortunately, he was informed the Queen was not in residence, and returned home. In 1894, representatives of King Thibaw Min of Burma knighted him as Sir Topaz, Knight of the White Elephant of Burmah, a title he used in his advertising.

We looked up Thibaw Min, the last king of Burma, where it says his full name is The Royal Thibaw Min, Golden-footed Lord of the White Elephant, Master of a Thousand Gold Umbrellas, Owner of the Royal Peacocks, Lord of the Sea and of the World, Whose face is like the Sun. In his own words, the reason he fell from the throne is:

My late father, the Royal Mindon Min, the golden-footed lord of the white elephant, master of a thousand gold umbrellas, owner of the Royal peacocks, lord of the sea and of the world, whose face was like the sun, always smoked the Esoof cheroot while meditating on his treatment of the bull-faced, earthswallowing English. Had I done the same I should never have lost my throne, but I used the opium-drugged cheroots from Manila and the trash which was sent to me from San Francisco, and I fell.

Our hip-hop rendering of An Address to the New Tay Bridge is below.

Introducing Hip-Hop Legend William McGonagall with Gold Diamonds: "An Address to the New Tay Bridge"

Last Burns Night, after our second bottle of Scotch, & a full evening of Robert Burns' delicious poetry & veggie haggis, we got a hat-tip from Miss Williams that there was a 19th Century Scottish poet who had been voted "Britain's worst poet". We quickly found some of William McGonagall's work & ended the night with his amazing "An Address to the New Tay Bridge". We proposed several projects, including a McGonagall Night some other evening in the year, dedicated to the worst poetry, perhaps with absinthe & spam; & also a hip-hop version of McGonagall's poems. (The New Tay Bridge poem is oddly suited to the genre.) I'm proud to present Mr McGonagall's debut as a rap star, in his first collaboration with the great Gold Diamonds. I warn you, there is also at least one more setting of this poem to funky beats, & probably even more coming, I'm worried there might have to be an entire album of just New Tay Bridges. Any resemblance to the MC Pseudo-Dionysius is a zeitgeistical convergence. Presenting WILLIAM McGONAGALL.

An Address to the New Tay Bridge

BEAUTIFUL new railway bridge of the Silvery Tay,
With your strong brick piers and buttresses in so grand array,
And your thirteen central girders, which seem to my eye
Strong enough all windy storms to defy.
And as I gaze upon thee my heart feels gay,
Because thou are the greatest railway bridge of the present day,
And can be seen for miles away
From North, South, East or West of the Tay
On a beautiful and clear sunshiny day,
And ought to make the hearts of the "Mars" boys feel gay,
Because thine equal nowhere can be seen,
Only near by Dundee and the bonnie Magdalen Green.

Read the rest of the original poem here.
Download the mp3 here.