Long Boxcar Poems
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Looking for adventure and escape,
a young girl's thinking of skipping school.
And a case of spring-fever finds her
skirting the edge of town, acting cool.
Sharp as a whip, she heads for a curve
in the tracks where the train must slow down.
And with her spot well-chosen, she waits
behind some bushes outside of town.
Suddenly, she hears the train coming,
with its high-pitched squeal of steel on steel.
And her heart begins beating wildly,
each clinking clank fueling her zeal.
With its wheels screeching and sparks flying,
a humongous engine lumbers by.
And she looks for an open boxcar,
aware, with one wrong step, she could die.
Racing alongside gives her a thrill,
for the train is still moving quite fast.
And matching its speed, she pumps her legs,
with bravado not felt in the past.
Fighting fatigue, she pushes onward,
not letting her pain get in the way.
And chugging along, picking up speed,
a train full of dreams whisks her away.
(Quatrain)
7/29/2015
As I try to wish away, all the sadness that I feel;
As if a night sky's falling star, could grant me something real...
If only one small wish, of what's eluded me all this life thus far;
I'd wish for just some happiness, just a little in a jar;
So I could open as I needed, unload some sadness that I feel
Much like unloading bulky freight,
From a trains overloaded boxcar...
If only I could wish away, all the sadness that I feel,
I'd finish this life with certainty
And a soul full of new found zeal...
The truth is, I'm afraid of most everything.
From the beautiful forests, cloaking hungry beasts.
Every wave of the ocean din harbors a cold dorsal fin...
With my name engraved on it.
The mountains-and all the hidden fissures
, every step a potential hellish frozen death.
I'm afraid of big cities with all its bag pipe faces.
Blitzing back and forth from noise to noise-
A million dirty children-a half a million broken toys.
I'm afraid of small towns-and all the earthy smiles.
Hiding in plain sight, their filthy six-fingered lies.
I'm afraid of the finality of graveyards...
Rows of forgotten marble splashed with pigeon droppings.
I'm afraid of old age-as signs of frailty are starting to mount.
I'm afraid of the lost people of the iPhone occult.
Blank faces shuffling along like short-circuited robots.
I'm afraid of the heartless turbine called change.
The lengthy lives of predators
The brief flash of beauty
Pristine waters that suddenly turn murky.
Mayhem always stalking beauty
The brevity of pollinators.
I'm afraid of love tossed so casually aside.
Like a pair of city sneakers wrapped around a country wire.
I'm afraid of that late-night phone ring.
That chimes, that your life will never be the same.
I'm afraid of the snotty ogre in the mirror-that they call a wasted life.
I'm afraid there is no God at the end of the line.
I'm afraid of boxcar graffiti
I'm afraid of dying but not death
I'm afraid of the mirror so I turn the other cheek.
Lost in a card game
that others would pass
I feel the time slowing
while covering fast
A dim all-night roadhouse
blue plate of regret
whose neon but flickers
my hunger to bet
A pot full of memory
has come unannounced
with bare knuckled waging
I raise every doubt
But the road’s calling silent
its direction unclear
my thumb pointing inward
to ante the fear
The odds long but taken
to gamble and run
my fortune extended
and past rebegun
A graveyard sits lonely
on the side of a hill
awaiting those fated
last dealer to kill
A light in the distance…
the ‘Omaha Gate’
it’s twelve minutes early
tomorrow is late
Asleep in the boxcar
alone with myself
the questions keep playing
—one ace left undealt
(Sinking Springs Diner: December, 2021)
NOT MANY KNOW OF BOXCAR JACK
WHO LIVES ON A TRAIN GOING WAY BACK
HEARING THE SOUND OF THE CLITITY CLACK
THAT COMES FROM BEAT OF A NORTHBOUND TRACK
WELL BOXCAR WAS A MUSIC MAN
PLAYING HIS GUITAR WHEN HE CAN
STRUMMING OUT A HEARTFELT TUNE
NEVER STOPPING NONE TO SOON
BOXCAR WAS ALSO A LADIES MAN
HAD THEM SPREAD ALL OVER THE LAND
THEY LOVED TO HEAR HIM SING HIS TUNE
THE RASPY VOICE WOULD MAKE THEM SWOON
THEY’D DRESS HIM UP AND FEED HIM WELL
A HOMELESS MAN YOU’D NEVER TELL
A DAY OR TWO HE’D SING HIS SONG
WHEN RESTLESS CAME HE’D THEN BE GONE
HEADED DOWN THAT SOUTHBOUND TRACK
HEARING THE BEAT OF THE CLITITY CLACK
DREAMING UP ANOTHER SONG
OF LOVE GONE RIGHT AND THEN GONE WRONG
I MET BOXCAR WAY DOWN IN MACON
LOOKING SAD AND ALL FORSAKEN
I ASKED HIM WHAT THE PROBLEM WAS
WHY THE TEARS, WHAT WAS THE CAUSE?
BOXCAR TOLD ME IT WAS LOVE
A GODDESS BORN FROM UP ABOVE
A GIRL SO SWEET AND SLIGHTLY SILLY
WHOSE MOTHER CALLED HER LITTLE MILLIE
BUT MOMMA TOLD HER HE WAS WRONG.
HE DIDN’T SING THE PROPER SONG
NO JOB HAD HE OR DOLLAR BILLS
TO KEEP HER WARM FROM WINTER CHILLS
SO BOXCAR’S ON A WESTBOUND TRACK
TO HEAR THE BEAT OF THE CLITITY CLACK
A BEER OR TWO HE WASHES DOWN
AND THEN THERE CAME THAT SIMPLE FROWN
AND AFTER SEVERAL HUNDRED MILES
THE FROWN TURNED INTO HAPPY SMILES
AND SONGS HE WROTE IN PASSING TIME
OF LOVE THAT HAD NO ENDING RHYME
HE ENDED UP IN KANSAS CITY
LIVING WITH A GIRL SO PRETTY
DANCING IN A SATIN GOWN
SHE LOVED IT WHEN HE CAME TO TOWN
HE NAMED HER IN A SPECIAL TUNE
HE WROTE FOR HER THAT NIGHT IN JUNE
HE TOLD HER THAT HE’D SOON BE BACK
AND THEN HE LEFT FOR THE ENDLESS TRACK
AND NOW YOU KNOW OF BOXCAR JACK
WHO LOVED THE SOUND OF THE CLITITY CLACK
WHO LOVED THE GIRLS AND LIKED TO CROON
ON A TRAIN SOMEWHERE BELOW THE MOON
Sleeping in the corner of a boxcar bound for Boulder
Got a life I like to leave behind a love I'd like to keep.
With the River passing slowly through the desert night below me
The thunder rips across the sky and wakes me from my sleep.
Now I spent the later sixties in the Colorado Rockies,
But California called when I was running out of bread .
As Caroline tried not to cry, we slowly kissed our love goodbye
And 10 years came between us is our separate lives we led.
Now a man in search of girls and dreams can bend his mind and make it seem
Like all good things are waiting in the next town round the bend.
But all I got from the traveling life was a beat-up Ford and a nagging wife,
And nothing in my future here but things that might have been.
Another pour of Cutty Sark at a Chinese bar in Buena Park ,
I thought back on my life ‘till there was nothing more to say.
So I didn’t find it too hard to walk out to that train yard
And in the dusk I jumped aboard an eastbound Santa Fe.
Now staring blankly at the wall a life of hatred I recall
Our quiet nights were seldom as are fighting words increased.
But I've left it all eight hours ago to start life I used to know,
With the night chill on my blanket, ‘cross the River headed East.
Pardon me but I've made one mistake.
Can't you see I'm doing all I can.
Let me be and I’ll find love a gain
Because I'm going to see my Mountain Girl again.
Author's note: Intended as a song, the last four lines are meant to be a chorus interspersed after every other stanza. Dedicated to Ian Tyson.
Went to see my barber
Asked what style it is I'd like
Chicago Boxcar in the front
Boston in the back
Looked at me rather strangely
Got his shears from out the back
Shaved my head down to the bone
Said that's the end of that
Went to see my dentist
For the ache that's in my mouth
The reason for my visit
To see what it's all about
Told me he knew the problem
Got his pliers from out the back
Pulled all my teeth from out my head
Said that's the end of that
Went to see my doctor
About this tightening in my chest
Take two aspirin call me later
Go home and get some rest
Asked if that's the best advice
That it is he has
Got another opinion from out the back
Said that's the end of that
Went to see the undertaker
Got there D.O.A.
With the shape I was in
Nothing he could say
Got his favorite rake and shovel
From the shed out in the back
Buried me six feet deep
Said that's the end of that
Way back in 1983,
when I was just twenty-four you see,
very early in my career,
young, naïve, somewhat cavalier,
I wanted to buy a brand-new car,
something sporty, not some "boxcar".
Of course I had the money, the "dinero",
so I went out and bought a Chevy Camaro.
It was a 1983 Sport Coupe -
rather appropriate for my age group.
The color was diablo red,
and lemme tell ya! It sure turned heads!
Everywhere I went, that car got attention
and I won't deny it gave me an air of pretension.
Looking back, I suppose I was young and foolish
thinking that the car made me look coolish,
but that car was dependable
and took me where I needed to go,
whether on winding roads
or on the straight and narrow.
Now I have a treasury of memories:
its sounds, touches, and sights as well;
I still can remember that new-car smell.
Your first car is something you fondly remember,
forgetting the flaws, looking back on its splendor.
A train went by in the distance
and I could hear it passing
every few hours or so from the back
bedroom of my grandfather’s house
My room, when mom came home
after she and dad derailed, but the
train out back was always certain to its track....
no burden that I needed to understand.
My room, and commuter’s haven in college,
and mom felt so much better
with me moved back in the house
in case the old man fell.
And when she fell first,
the spill shut down the town
and the Train roared into that long
awake night out in the back.
Still my room when I moved away
with the years, and understood
that home is more of a time
than a place, both slipped
beyond the great reclaim. You
were there once, and I’m sure
the train went by that night but
neither one of us heard the roll.
Years later, my sister and I sold
the house, and I slept the closing
eve in that room out back
the farewell caravan
pealing on by the foot board--
moving on with the moving on,
it’s boxcar back always open
to the hobo---up for a jump.
Nail walking down the street
Carrying a bagful to fix something
For the master who owns my dreaming
Storefronts lolling sidewalks asleep
Night quiet jazz, Erie, PA
The endless road breaking cartons
Locked doors being kidnapped jumping
fences getting spotted running away
Dreaming snatches of words in the air
Fine milky jazz boots on a roll a train
That passes at 10 a,m, cars with their vapor
Mist the chuga-chuga sound of a boxcar to
No-where the rattling of walls when you are
Alone hot tea Lorrianne in a skirt a poetry
Reading in N.Y. moving out with only the
Shirt on my back going down,back,out, taking
Chris to the mermaid bar covered in sand, no shoes
Living nearby close to the sea, changing
Having enough cool to chill sand enough to scratch
That you never itch life that you're full
Digging the Diz and jack going, back going, back going
Because you want to/needing nothing' nothing but a little
Taste now and again just being free doing it instead of it
doing you