Hart Crane by Dakota Pollock

Published Mar 6, 2020

HART CRANE

Harold Bloom is dead
I don’t have to worry
About his academic attacks
On others with
That sniveling, self assured
Intellect
His smug, all knowing,
pretentious smirk
Like the sailors
Who threw Hart Crane
From a ship
After he made a pass
At probably all of them
And they threw him
Into the Atlantic Ocean
And then wiped their hands
Hands before
Having a drink together
In the ship's bar
Because there used to be
Bars even in Air Force bases
They said it was suicide
Crane's lonely bones
On the bottom of the ocean floor
The man who wrote

‘Pile on the logs... Give me your hands,
Friends! No - It is not fright...
But hold me... Somewhere I heard demands...
And on the window licks the night.’

Alone on the ocean floor
With only his boots remaining
How poetic.
Bloom and I
Both loved Crane
Even though
Neither of us,
Despite what Bloom claimed,
Understood what Crane
Was trying to say,
But when I saw that bloom
Had died while
Reading his Wikipedia
Article
I said, well, no more
Unwanted hands
Gripping undergraduate thighs
And lectures on how to improve
Grades. vBloom is gone
Dead
Remembered in over 40
Different languages
(Who reads literary critique anyways?)
I can’t think of
Any lines of romanticism
To commemorate him Because I’m just relieved
Knowing that I’ll never have to
Worry about his immediate
Dismissal of my work
And the laughing of
Academics
as they throw
The non-Hart Crane’s stuff
In the trash.