THE SONG OF PASSING TRAINS

THE SONG OF PASSING TRAINS

           Before there was language

              the dream invented itself again and again

             giving us the binding thread.

Each night trains rumble and growl 

down the Feather River Canyon

like snorting bulls, or fiery dragons.

They do not want taming, but a virgin lap will do.

Real train lights, like moveable stars, 

                                 pulse through my dreams;

my neighbor Sonny and Elvis are jammin’ after hours,

riding the long groundswell and percussion of trains

to the harmonica singing of wheels and tracks

resonating like the mouths of finest crystal;

their curved song reverberates off slate walls.

I dream we clipped the talons of captive eagles,

showed them to the children, 

                   were responsible for their hunger,

the talons making small, dark crescent moons on the floor.

Sometimes the trains are like falling houses

coming barreling down the tracks,

leaving me alone with the eagles and children

(having swallowed the abortant too late)

while the men ride into the west making sweet music.

Too much moonlight on the canyon walls.

It begins with trout and bullfrogs punctuating the darkness.

Then, the deep rumble and moan, thrum and pulse

and the extraordinary singing of wheels—

as if shy angels only practiced with each passing train.

The river answers, slumbering gold in the deeper pools.

What survives are the angry red eyes of trains

dragging us into the well of night.

Each train wails along the canyon walls

of Las Plumas del Oro, stitching them like a shroud.

I stand on the rivershore, the unceasing faith of tides

pulls blood through my body, making love

to the song of passing trains.

8/23/94

Twain, CA

POSTCARDS FROM THE ROAD, REDUX

POSTCARDS FROM THE ROAD, REDUX

Dear Jim,

Wending our way cross-country with laptops, sleeping bags,

evening dresses, broken hearts, hiking boots, Celia & I

managed to find the North Rim in the dark without a map.

Woke to your cowboy coffee, colon-blo, boiled french roast

that threatened to make off with the pot at Jacob Lake

which we never did find. Lake was a man, not a body of water.

Soon as we crossed the Utah border, Lord, how we suffered

from Mormon exposure, twisting our vowels (not bowels).

She insisted the sign at Dry Beaver Creek read

“Keep poets on leash/ or face fine.” We haven’t written a thing,

but could use a two-bit shower & a shave.

Dear Sharon,

We drive along the Virgin River, the towns of Virgin,

and Laverkin by the Cowboy Buttes in Beaver County—

& wonder, what was on those Mormon’s minds.

Celia calls me Mo-reen, says we’re in ’Merika now

but is confused by my speaking in tongues:

the ungulates crossing the road are cantaloupes. 

Oh give me a home…

Can you spell dicks-lexia, bulls and girls?

We’re born again, baptized in the Virgin River

(don’t know as to whether or not it actually took),

I say she baptized us in the wrong place: the difference

between dyslexia and dailysex is merely a perceptual matter.

Where does the the random mind stop and the prairie begin?

Dear Bruce,

Crossing the Sandia Mountains

I kain’t believe how much “Jesus saves” ’round here—

Or how on our 1993 White Trash Tour,

which officially began at the Cadillac Ranch

(a line of caddies planted nose first—car henge)

in Amarillo, Texas, folks take three syllables

(or all day, whatever comes first) to say fish and truck.

The trucks here are God’s personal rollin’ billboards

& the overpasses tell us poor watermelons to believe. 

God is dog; evil is live. Shone’s is one-up from Stuckey’s.

We’ve been on the road too long; Denny’s is beginning to seem like home.

We’re road worriers sinnin’ in the heart of the cholesterol belt,

getting good mileage on bad vowels and day-old puns.

Dear God,

El Reno, the epicenter of radio revival land is a shakin’ & a rollin’

but the cockroaches in the motel bathroom don’t seem very saved.

However, I do believe they will inherit the earth, by and bye.

Blanketed by kudzu vines, black-eyed susans suffer death by bed tax.

We’re humid beans descending into the syntax of the vegetable kingdom.

Like true love, and the blues, maps are abstract unless you’ve been there.

You’d like Hot Springs, home of Bill Clinton haircuts & the Sin Tax.

I bet the Mormons took to that idea. Say, God, who's your best friend?

Lightning storm—we pilgrims cross Old Muddy, enter Memphis,

& truly we have let Tennessee into our hearts, for at the gates

of Graceland, the chosen have come to testify the miracles.

St. Elvis is still King, and anything is possible—this poem, or even love.

9/23/93  Graceland