Short Train Poem for
Pop
No one liked
the black licorice
shipped by the American
Licorice Company
but the red
which is not licorice
yes, I had enough
for the whole class.
Flares were our
4th of July
dynamite, tho
Pop
once stole two cherry bombs
the neighbor pissed
but Pop got away w/ it
this was the lesson
he left, and the train.
And the Slaughter
air it dopples
in the wily
summer night
Ricochets off the West
Hill dawn shuddering
the sun-fed Scotch Broom
in May.
Silver ribbons of sound
veering around plums
preparing to litter
the August ground.
A pause at the Whistle
Stop Cafe, no real
poet seeks to compete
w/ &
catch an Amtrak
to
taken from the diner car
table the four year old
(really five) takes
unknowing the concept
of tips, if the Amtrak
is a person
as much as people are
if the horse can be iron
and birth new
velocities of Slaughter
if train horns counterpoint
the Slaughter night
w/ Lester Young and if what
she said is true:
at the start of every
nightmare waits a train
we've all a train horn
inside us few ever stop to hear.
1:10P
7.19.05
St. Margaret's