train poems

Most written downstairs in the lounge car. I should tell you stories but I would rather tell them like they were on a sandwich menu. Please ask if you would like the story selection.


IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING

You got mustard all over,
dumbface. Careful, or you
melt into the old drunk
of flinches who promises
promises he won't pin,
saddles up and whispers
how he hung his white
blazer on a sure thing
in a May apartment. This,
then his rest cure is over.
He knows maybe of a girl
who sold his legal name.
Gone back for it with
a discount magnet and
know how to hold it right
on in over there. That's the
spot. Sweet, too. Well,
once, sweet on some of
us, famous as sagebrush,
the jerry-rigged scenery
of our commiserate theatre.
Who is he talking to? Like
Tootsie Pops: the world may
never and so forth. The sun
sets in the Utah desert like
a stranger who knows what you
did but aww, waves you on.

HOW I SCORE

My mad Russian looks
and how I carry tunes
like hobos on my back
from a YMCA on fire.

My tendency to piss standing up
in a calm and anti-racist stance.

The French rail star tradition:
the downer always goes first.

Among the junipers and werewolves,
I can boil a staunch off your
scarf, cauterize your wounds,
and whistle hubba-hubba hoots
to call any night train others
might happen to call home.

All as sold to me by a bassoonist
in Nashville, the dreariest town
for hot bassoon bassoon action.

I AM NOT LYING INSIDE OF THIS POEM
for Joe Massey

Spent most of
Colorado with my
lips open, on one
line. This me dumb
stuck, and only a
little too young
to die. Thank you.
You can go now.

WON'T YOU NURSE THESE

Everything go? I'm one and I've got
a heart in it. Looks like there's
people left, left them all, maybe
others now? Maybe. Right. Too
friendly. I'm looking forward to
outside. The leak is on, too sweaty
for me. Oh man. Why weren't sunglasses
about the second or third thing ever?

THE COMMUTER'S SONG OF HOPE

I believe I have it all
planned out so perfectly
I believe I believe I believe

ARE YOU UP

Want to play
cards, saw
dust, teeth
tango, Ohio.

I MET THIS GIRL AMY BEFORE CHICAGO AND SHE WAS INCREDIBLY CUTE AND SMART AND

Yeah.