Best Freight Poems
Freight train clattered by
over a tree lined viaduct ~
golden oriole sings .
UNCLAIMED FREIGHT
I offered myself to you - Rejected many for you, made myself
Exclusively yours - You never understood that I was not here
To endure jealousy, hate or envy –
Only to serve you and teach you how to include instead of excluding...
You looked over and under but never really looked at me.
Patted my head most appeasingly.
I felt like the puppy with eyes waiting for that proverbial bone.
Then, when keener eyes saw what you never saw;
Benefited from my earthly presence;
Suddenly like a spoiled child who never
played with his wind-up toy;
Until someone else wound it up he,
Now wanted to claim that toy to be his favorite.
You should have examined me; and found my key…
loved me, and explore my inner workings up close,
Before it was too late to relate...
Another metaphor would be
They valued what you failed to see.
You were blind to see my worth…
You never claimed me for yourself.
Left me sitting on the warehouse shelf
You seemed surprised, they bided high
Because what’s yours is not yours
“If you don't claim it!”!
Unclaimed freight…
“goes to the highest bidder”.
Girl it's been a long time--sorry to make you wait
But this heart is a like a tired old freight train
And it's going to take some time to unwind
I've been staring out the door of this box car
As the world rolls away think'n why a man
wants to be lonely and loves the sky so grey
And you know what babe? It's not that
I don't love you. It's not that I don't care
It's just everything I've been through
To get to here from there
I've chugged through all these hose-stop towns
Climbed o'er every mountain pass
A blanket of stars when the sun goes down
Tucked in that mournful whistle blast
With the moon as my mistress every night
Sweet companion wherever I roam
Thoughts travel on rails so straight and so right
I am always least lonely when I am alone
For thirty years --you know it was true
Even the thirty --I spent with her
Now all that's left I give to you
And I'm sure that I'm sure that I'm sure
You are my Angel from Montgomery
My something to hold onto song
You are that missing part of me
When everything else is gone
I'm gonna get back on this train tonight
And travel with the big fat moon
It's been this way all of my life
But I'll be coming to see you soon
Yeah... I'm coming to see you soon
The freight train puffs a veil of smoke into the night.
The iron rails rumble.
Be still.
Now.
There it is, the engine's call, fading
To the distance.
Between shadows, a lean figure grips tight to the rolling steel,
His pack worn low on his back, and now he's gone
Wholly, into the night.
I stand alone by the coal yard, I do not dare speak
Or move.
I listen.
The train bends away into its own darkness,
And I lean toward mine.
I tried to sleep, but the trip is long
Now far from home where things went so wrong
This whole train now I call mine
My boxcar upon the line
Bottle of wine, a cork and a song
11-22-19
Contest: Five Word Challenge
Sponsor: Beth Evans
The spiral staircase made her high heels sing.
San Francisco's nights treated her that way.
Sophisticated vacation each Spring -
Nothing seemed as romantic as the Bay.
She met him on the wharf one moonlit night-
Pretended to be one of high fashion.
Her vacation spent in fantasy flight,
Wrapped in her dreams and his intense passion.
From here the City churches pierced the mist
And foghorns warned of danger in the Bay.
She would think of the times that they had kissed,
And not tell him that she was from L.A.
He opened her laptop, looked under "Freight" -
He could hop a train almost anywhere.
Now he could be in Bakersfield by eight.
He closed it, and, now smiling, crossed the square.
5-10-18 for contest one , nine and sixteen...for Viv Wigley
as you come home
remember your not along
theye're out there
everywhere
be aware we care
don't just stare
so watch that moon light
its end of month in oct.
its
FREIGHT AND SPOOK
NIGHT
When you go about a new light
There is a new freight
It must be helps by a new might
its like smoke cloud
that loud
as you hear hum moma crown
and a beat
coming down the street
you see the bright light
with faces that bit
its
CITY FREIGHT AND
BOO NIGHT
The less
I move my lips at my 4:00 am Saturday morning sessions
The more
These words are trees standing still beside a racing river
A long way away
Freight train bores the night
Moon without light
Its alto horn
Projects from nowhere entangles everywhere
Uninhibited
By barren maples and icy roads
Abandoned homes and snowdrifts
A shadow walking his dog under planets of street lights
All powerless against the elk’s forlorn cry
The long sigh reaches me in my living room
Like a rope
Or an armored snake
That takes its slithering life with such mangled ease
Iron bolts
Shackles jolt and shudder to the lumber spindles
I have no name but I am story
Clack clack
Clack clack
Clack clack
I count the halved steps of thunder from the mysterious miles
Waning afar
As the Rolling Stones once sang Love is like our music
It’s here and then it’s gone
I am magician
Make things appear and disappear
Conjure things to move
Erase the past and future with Bastami’s ink baton
I am startled back to life
Perfect quiet
Train absent if it ever was.
I didn't fill out any paperwork.
There was no memo, no consent form.
Just a nameless morning when the mirror refused
to acknowledge anything above my collarbone.
After that, people entered me carrying grief
in cardboard boxes. Pressed buttons
for floors that didn't exist.
A man from 4D requested the roof,
as if it were still an option.
On Thursday, a child in a yellow parka
whispered a song
I recognized from my sleep paralysis years.
It all arrived sticky and wrong
though I tried to hum along,
my cables winced.
By Sunday I was hosting more
than traffic. Something moved
inside the machinery, something
older than ballast or balance,
and it wouldn't stop licking the grease
from its own teeth.
It told me to smile more.
I jammed the doors.
hummingbird—
someone's mouth
in my throat
As a carefree lad I used to lie awake at night and wait,
To hear the mournful wail of the Nickel Plate midnight freight,
As it slowly wended its way thro' moonlit hill and vale,
Across the verdant Hoosier prairie on its silvery rail.
I dreamt of the far-away places from whence it came and went.
'Til I tasted the adventure if proferred, I'd never be content.
To be the engineer of that mighty brute was my aspiration,
And I vowed to pursue that dream with youthful determination!
The fireman stoked the coal, creating a feathery plume of smoke,
His massive hulk keeping the firebox full, never missing a stroke!
The conductor from his throne in the trailing red caboose,
Managed all, the other crew thinking him somewhat obtuse!
I even learnt one of its signals that I remember to this day:
Two long, one short, one long, meant it was crossing a highway.
I often wondered what loads it was carrying across the nation;
Corn, wheat, cattle or hobos heading for a greener destination?
I suppose that young boys dream and old men tend to scheme,
Striving their best to capture that ever elusive dream.
Alas, I never became the engineer that I wanted to be,
But it created in my soul a desire for places I pined to see!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired (© All Rights Reserved)
Box cars a mile long, rolling all night headed West
Some full, some empty, all singing the same old song
A Cadillac for The King Of The Road
Countrymen! Sleep! There's no train here
Condemned as we are, who to fear?
Consider crushed stones the rose bed,
Tracks are soft pillows, place your head.
Haven't we had many thorns in life?
Have we failed to face any strife?
Like peaceful children, hence, they slept,
Although their souls within them wept.
Wherefrom, like fate, that train appear?
Our deadly tired bodies to tear!
That our so far held breaths to take,
And out of us mere corpses to make!
We know they'll now investigate,
Brain from reasons to separate!
'O poor dear countrymen!' they'll say,
'Yet why did you choose the train's way?'
Thus ends, lo, our life-long labor,
A prey to a lifeless monster!
“At least 16 migrant laborers were killed early on Friday after a cargo train ran over them in Maharashtra’s Aurangabad district”
30 May 2021
ALL YOURS (May 29) Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Brian Strand
The freight train of time,
speeding through the years.
Hold on for dear life,
shifting through the gears.
The landscape rolls on,
under a blue sky.
A breath-taking view,
brings tears to the eye.
Loved ones jumping off,
taking hearts along.
With no fare thee well,
Just up and then gone.
This train going where?
Come on if you dare!
date:1/31/22