Main Street in Sturgis
This poem jumped out at me in a recent issue of the literary journal, Southwest Review, thanks to its unlikely subject-matter — it’s the first poem I’ve ever run across about a motorcycle rally. But I love the way the poem rushes headlong into the strange, imaginative details of this part of America — we quickly find ourselves amid Vikings, pirates, and “ersatz Mayan bling.” I’ve quoted the first few stanzas here, and wish I could offer a link to the whole, kaleidoscopic poem:
Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, Sturgis, South Dakota
More than magenta tattoos that flicker action films
of flame-snorting dragons or sea serpents across once
muscled chests shoulders forearms more than massive rhinestone
encrusted buckles studding barrel-waisted denims
with ersatz Mayan bling their headgear blazes longings
to return to a more fabled age Viking helmets
some horned some winged with stripes or lightning bolts golden clasped
bandanas starred midnight or blood red silks that might have
fringed the brow of Blackbeard or Long John Silver and most
of all the towering broad-brimmed stetsons mesas on
the move their shadows sweeping once-vast plains under wheeled
riders’ great horsepowered mounts mythology of man
versus steer…
–John Reibetanz, from “At the Corner of Oil and Beef”
Southwest Review (Volume 97, Number 4)
Photo Credit: Chris Heald, Creative Commons
