cargo train: a poem

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my wife has never liked
the cargo trains
that operate a mile
from our house,
but I have
always had
the utmost admiration
and respect
for them.

even as
antiquated
and
anachronistic
as they may be,
I still find comfort
in those horn blasts.

early morning rooster calls.
late evening dinner bells.

as a teen,
I walked on the rails,
maintaining my balance
like a tightrope walker,
as cars passed by me to the south.

Grab my poetry book, 'we're all just wanderers in the end' Here

my audience.

ta-da!
thank you for coming.
I’ll be here all week.

I have laid
coins
and
nails
and
keys
on the tracks
to be flattened—
stretched out, thrice long,
paper thin
and
curled—
metallized dough
kneaded by
a mountain
of shining steel
grinding away in
perpetual,
linear
fashion,
until distant modicums
of glistening metal
and smoke
remained,
hinting at
what once was,
moved on.

just like the rest of the world.

to me:
a time machine
of the olden days—
of westerns,
and robberies,
and hobos,
and cross-country treks,
and traveling salesmen,
and cowboys,
and all the lone wanderers
of the day
bent on starting over
in a different city—
starting a different life,
only to find
that it didn’t matter
what city you went to,
things were
always the same
and people were
always the same
and life was
always the same.

See also calico cat: a poem

the train I saw today
wasn’t particularly long.
probably 50 cars
or so,
and
this train had those
blackened BNSF letters
against a citrus backdrop
chased by
Amazon and YRC and JB Hunt
corrugated intermodal containers
and
UPS truck trailers
upon flatcars,
locked and linked
via couplings,
like a one lane race
of commodities
with red lights flashing
to entice them
to victory.