I can explain exactly why it bothers me! (warning - long rant incoming :P)

1. I don’t listen to Nightwish for poetry, I listen to them for music. I feel quite cheated because I was so excited about there being this 20 minute long song (which was then split into Song of Myself and Imaginaerum) and was hoping it would be the most epic NW song ever. Instead - poetry. :(

2. The rest of the song is so good. You get this epic build-up which could be up there with the TPATP or GLS, but instead it just fades out and you get talking. It was so crushingly disappointing the first time I heard it.

3. Apart from some of the stuff in the last half of the poem, it doesn’t sound like Tuomas/Nightwish’s lyrical style. Plus, some of it is just not nice to listen to, for example:

“An old man gets naked and kisses a model-doll in his attic
It’s half-light and he’s in tears.
When he finally comes his eyes are cascading.”

Just… eww. The last half of the poem is a lot nicer and more Nightwish-y, and has a few really wonderful lines, but you have to listen to all of this bit first and it really puts me off.

4. It goes on way too long.

5. Going back to OP’s original point, if you don’t like it then you end up skipping it every time. Every other Nightwish album I can listen to all the way through, perfectly happily, and feel a nice sense of content and closure when I get to the end. When I listen to Imaginaerum and I get to the end of SOM I just feel a bit let down and turn it off. It’s a pretty rubbish feeling.

I know there are people who love the poem and everything but I also know there are a lot of people who feel the same way as me. I think Tuomas knew it would be divisive, but y’know, it’s up to him what he does in the end.