Long Iron horse Poems
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When I sit my horse on hilltops, I find,
I cannot see the buffalo no more.
As whites have come and made the plains unkind.
Soiled all wondrous things I saw before.
For many winter's, warrior's sustained.
Freed our people to seek warmer winds,
And moved as clouds before coming rain.
To share Mother Earth with our naked skins.
Clouds dark, grow higher than eagle's wings,
As we feel the coming depth of sorrow.
Each moon we see dark smoke and what it brings,
Cries and death songs will echo tomorrow.
We join in ghost dance with its paint of black,
And seek visions from warrior ghosts of old.
We hear the iron horse on its metal track,
And know its fiery heart is burning cold.
Whites who come take each mountain they climb
While bones from buffalo and elk grow deep
Warrior's blood will know the end of time.
Mothers who suckled us with milk, shall weep.
His massive head was adorned with a wooly crown,
and his robes decorated with ermine of brown
What a majestic monarch roaming with regal grace.
He was mighty, but bearing a pusillanimous face.
The king ruled his domain and his subjects in harmony,
and spent his life on the plains with complacency
The presence of parallel steel rails soon would tell
the arrival of a smoking iron horse from hell
This brought waves of lead with tactless trajectories
from those who were carriers of a deadly disease
Many subjects soon would fall victim to the rain
which emanated from the guns on the moving train.
After the end of the deadly lead storm that day,
that careless iron horse then just galloped away.
Necrophagous vultures hovering not too high
in circular anticipation in the sky,
knew that the victims were inhaling their last breath.
They would soon be consumed by inevitable death
Words of another poet I would then recall:
“And death and darkness held dominion over all”
Diminished numbers of subjects would indicate
that this was the time for the king to abdicate.
Many moons had to pass through numerous night skies
before enough blind people would open their eyes.
Life and preservation is now what we embrace.
Finally, the king has gratefully regained his place.
Long live the king!
Clouds were rolling
along against a stark sky, the day
the day the old Iron Horse
came through the mile-long tunnel.
It chugged on down
into town and I caught a ride.
As I began my dinner-ride,
the engine began to roll.
Slowly, click-clacking down
a track, that hungry, hopeful day.
Just before that tunnel,
In a field I spied black horse.
The rolling old Iron Horse,
was not an easy ride.
Inside that mile-long tunnel;
my stomach began to roll.
Churning all through the day;
I needed to lie down.
Unable to lie down,
I thought of the black horse.
Standing alone in a field, that daym
it would have been a smoother ride.
My stomach turning, old train rolling,
finally exiting mile-long tunnel.
In the distance, mile-long tunnel,
seemed to shrink on down.
As the train went rolling;
I kept thinking of that horse.
That calmed my stomach through the ride
I had, upon that day.
On that gloomy, cloudy day,
in the distance the black tunnel,
the horrid, nauseous ride,
began to cool itself down.
That jerky old iron horse
can just keep up its rolling.
The next day I took a better ride.
When dinner train came through that tunnelm
I waved from my own horse.
That train, it went on down
the noisy tracks and just kept on a rolling.
I run down the steps as the train pulls in
It seems I'm right on time
The doors open, I take a seat, my journey begins
As the doors close I hear them chime
The New York subway travels far and wide
I remember when a token was your ticket to ride
The old iron horse keeps chugging along
Beneath cars and buses and the city's throng
New York subway has been around since way back when
The first one was built in 1904
it only cost a nickel to ride it then
And the masses rode it more and more
But when it comes to subway history
London leads the way
Opening its first subway in 1863
Powered by the steam engine back in the day
The conductor announces the next stop, and it's mine
As the train pulls in I see the sign
And I know it won't be long
Before I'm above ground to join the city's throng!
10-23-2021
Railroads, A Historical Glance Back Poetry Contest
Sponsor: BJ Legros Kelley
Ole Eighty-seven, rugged and vain,
Serpentine on cold iron rails,
Story filled with strength and pain,
A legendary iron horse tale.
World-renowned freight train of yesteryear,
Lives ever in glory and fame,
A roaring chain without peers,
Ole Eighty-seven, her hailed nickname.
An expression of past golden days,
Its piercing whistle wailed and cried,
In early morn misty haze,
Slithering down the steep mountainside.
Ole Eighty-seven, out of control,
Its air brakes without warning failed,
Hauling a load of black gold,
Down a steep and twisting mountain grade.
Engine to last car, forthwith long gone,
Fondly evoked through song and pen,
Derailed on its final run,
Bringing the end to an idolized train.
Ole Eighty-seven, strong and able,
Railway giant of nobility,
Mayhap as fact and fable,
Railway saga of antiquity.
Mean Machine
The locomotive was an old mean machine
only used for carrying gods at local stations along
boring flatland. Once it had been a young and
the President of Portugal rode on it, not only him
but many other high up all the way to Lisbon.
And now? It wanted to go hiding somewhere dark,
but where does one conceal an iron horse?
The train passed near the parking lot in Faro
I was out with my dog, and there I could let her
run free. There was a hole in the fence were
the tracks. Naturally, she jumped through.
She saw the train that seemed to speed up
with murderous intent when she jumped clear it
was too late. I had her buried and the following
days were long and full of sadness.
Charley my wheel horse says that Jim is a yack, always jawing now.
They are both scrunchers, they nearly swallow their teeth on chow.
Jim is unsalted, but not lazy or slow, although he has trail dust grime.
He always responds well to “all hands and the cook” and in good time.
When the Mexican vaquero joins us, there is back slapping sure.
That’s when the biscuit roller trades in biscuits for tortillas, pure.
A ballyhoo? I do not think so, Bar dog. Can I get a John barley corn?
I would like to drink the cattle drive off my spurs, until it be morn.
How much does it cost to stay in the dice house tonight?
Don’t want to be honey-fuggled, so no Kansas sheep dip, all right?
a fresh mail order cowboy just entered the saloon, of course.
Don’t want to be a nosy parker, but did he just dismount the iron horse?
Did you see where I put my gelding smacker? I sleep with it naturally.
I am no lapper, but I could go for another John Barley Corn from thee.
Texas cakewalk tomorrow? Hmmm I wish I could stay but I am dragg’n.
Say hello to my cousin Sam, he drives the county’s meat wagon.
I kind of like a good hang’n when there’s a well-deserved California collar.
Was they horse thieves or murderers or what? Hey give my horse a holler.
I thought I saw a Cottonwood blossom when I rode into this place.
But there was no hellaballoo, so I wondered if it was the case.
In the stillness of slumber
In the wee morning hours
Far in the distance of night
A faint whistle can be heard...
Roar of eagerness shakes the night
As Kublai barks in happy delight
Scratching and clawing the back door
Dancing and jumping on the floor
The great Kublai cannot be contain
He must hunt the morning train
I stumble up with head of sleep
I drag myself if trying to keep
An urgent appointment late at night
I open the door Kublai takes flight.
Into the darkness Kublai runs
Barking louder for the oncoming Hun
The distant sounds of whistles and bells
Gives my Kublai his ultimate thrills
The mighty Choo Choo chugs along
Screams its warning ever so strong
But fearless Kublai barks right back
As if he could bark it off its tracks
Round and round back and forth
The fearless Kublai runs in force
As the train rumbles swiftly by
Kublai runs in circles staying in stride
His tail wagging, his tongue out
He barks and barks as if to shout
Oh mighty train you met your match
It flees into dawn before it gets catch
Blowing a horn in fleeting defiance
For the great Kublai has slain his giant
Faintly the train whistle sounds
No more thunder smokes the ground.
I pull my head from against the door
Triumphal Kublia has won his war
Panting and smiling with his tail up
Satisfied he just whopped some butt
He marches through his Arch of Victory
I remember how peaceful sleep used to be
Kublia circles around than lays down
Falls asleep safe and sound
I close the door and open my eyes
Did I do what I did I realize
It's 2AM and the house is dark
I got up to let a dog run and bark
Stumbling back into my jealous bed
I place a pillow over my head
His little short legs run in his sleep
As Kublia dreams of his great feat
The iron horse ran into his domain
The Great Kublai caught his train.
By day, Turtle is ornamental
he sits outside of a Chinese restaurant
by the side of an ornamental pond
that has always been empty of fish.
The traffic creates a dusty coat on his
stone shell, yet his eyes are wide open,
they do not blur the world
as it cascades along in its rumbling boxes,
its leaking mechanical lungs.
He remembers the iron horse
how it ran in one line this way then back,
now all things go where they may
and they may go all ways,
even to this hustling forecourt
in front of the restaurant.
The still night, does not land here
in suburbia until three in the morning,
then Turtle disappears, changes form,
reappearing in an empty bar
further down the now deserted road;
there he takes an allotment
of whisky from the white traders,
a contraband libation
that fills him with future dreams.
This night, he spins ice in his glass
until time slips in-between the hours.
He sees the groundhog running fast,
his fat rolling hips comical as he runs;
Turtle does not smile.
He hears the yipping fox
as it tries to slip away from the coming storm;
a storm that came and went many years ago,
and now returns as a howl
in the dreams of fretful sleepers.
Critters and humans run in their sleep
from some nameless terror.
Once in the distant past, they exhumed
a monster of sorts – a nebulous thing,
its golden eyes do not shine,
but they do weep blood,
they do hunger for more, for that blood,
like gold, must always be renewed.
Turtle gulps his whisky down.
He blesses the bar,
he blesses the drunken slur
of the approaching dawn.
He returns to the ornamental pond,
sits upon the edge
of the fishless pond again;
tries to recall what will come next,
shudders before turning back to stone.
Turtle cannot hold back
the coming storm,
even the painted fish on the wall
of the Chinese restaurant can sense this.
The American Morning
We ride smoothly, deliberately, in this old cruising caravan,
Across the ancient American avenues and boulevards,
Of the once living, and now, the finally dead,
Of the once famous, and now, the finally forgotten;
Of tattooed memories applied in the American morning, cooking
In the back kitchen, with yellow-yoked eggs frying rapturously,
Like monstrous hoards of buzzing locusts, out to kill,
In black pans, sizzling and searing sensationally;
With mysterious, soulful realizations of disappearing time,
The heavenly odors of bacon fat, rising to the old-fashioned clouds,
We come here to turn the radio dial, in this summer of winning and losing;
But now it is all turning, turning as the shadows of life should turn,
For life is the now of when and why; and we all know now,
What ‘s waiting and lurking behind the curtained door.
“No, kind sir, you go first through the door, sir, if you please.”
But as we ride now through these blighted snapshots in time,
This creeping caravan from the American morning comes to a halt.
Through the windshield and into the American night, old eyes see
A crowd of black ballplayers, gathering in Harlem on East River Avenue,
Looking to get inside the big ball yard, with the Babe, the Yankee Clipper,
And the Iron Horse, hitting fungoes over the EL station, over there,
Dressed in over-sized pinstripes, dripping in dirt and tobacco juice,
Tipping sweat-stained caps to the roaring, crescendoing ovations,
Thundering upward and through the airy reaches of the big ball yard,
Somehow do not reach their ears; still, they run fast, as if being chased,
Run faster than all the dead baseball gods of the American morning!
But now it is all turning, turning as the shadows of life should turn,
For life is the now of when and why; and we all know now,
What’s waiting and lurking behind the curtained door.
“No, kind sir, you go first through the door, sir, if you please.”