"Trains Have No Names" -The Pinehill Haints

Screeching metal on metal
banging like gunfire
over every imperfection
all-steel tires and
steaming off rain
with heat by convection.
Never to settle, always
headed somewhere, pounding
on rails, over gravel
and through the air, past
the water and without
fare, for the cargo is
its own money.

Further than doubt,
the helmsman throws
his arm out, sipping
whiskey sweet as honey.

Segment after segment faster
than to count, like a great
45mph worm with its
master in denim form,
sitting warm inside
its head.

Jaws open, to
reveal a blinding light,
it calls to its brethren
like whales,
who only know that
it is there,
but not where.

Paradigm Shift

Great Birds, sending

canoes to shore,

Full of men, tall

and fair, wearing wool

on their faces, with

boils and lesions

on the skin underneath.

They smell of salt and

old, dead detritus.

Their clothing is thick

and they speak as if their

tongues are too large.

Upon great, one-clawed,

hairy dragons they ride,

like a single beast with

two heads. With their

scales of mirrors they

carry great blades of the

same, celestial material.

In tubes they make both

Thunder and Lightning,

they can strike a

man from many arms away,

and turn him pale like

the woolen-faced birdmen.

Since the fair, tall

men have come

many have succumbed

to their mirror blades,

thunder tubes, and

the lesions that

they wear on their face.

The Birdmen are here to stay,

while

we

dry up and fall away,

The Pretty Girl I Saw at the Blacksburg Farmer's Market

You crossed
the street from the 711
to the farmer's market
with your friend, a
short girl with fake blonde hair,
just to make You look
that much taller
and Your
shoulder curls
that much
more like an old
but shiny
penny.

In the sunlight,
I could see Your
long legs, longer
than mine,
and they didn't shake
when You walked
because I assume
You ride a bike
when You're alone.

I said
in a low voice to
Ike:
"Man,
she's
tall"

"Who?"

And then You
blended into the
mulling
matrix
of monkey-faces
around all
the vendor
stalls.
I groaned:
"Never mind"

I went to buy hot peppers
and we had
both lost our companions
somewhere amongst
the eggplant and
woven garlic.

You stood in front of me
and upon
shifting weight
to Your left
leg,
You swung your
bronze rings around
to lay on Your
femininely wide
shoulder.
I admired Your
sloping, sculpted
nape
and Your
olive skin.
I felt a tinge
of envy for
Your inevitable
asshole of
a boyfriend.

You heard my
muddy boot
scuff on the
concrete
and glanced back.

For a second,
I saw You
and You smiled;
sheepishly I grinned, and
tipped my hat
from the fishhook.

You bought Your
hot peppers
(which I also admired)
and strode into
the countenance-crowd.
Your long legs
and hand-hewn
frame
fell away
behind
shrunken Asian couples
and hipsters
in offensive colors.

And now
I'm left to wonder
if You are a
good swimmer,
or if You
play
pool.

I think You
are the
apartment-near-campus
type.
But if you
own a car, I
like to think it's
a big, American-made
monster with a soft top
and bench seats.
One that You free-wheel around
sudden curves, without
power-steering,
as Your
copper curls and
brazen strands
fly carelessly in the wind.

Old Poems

Old poems
in shed dusted
half-light
with worn pencil
etching and
scribbled-out pen
strokes
sing nostalgia like
there were voices
on the paper.

Tomorrow is
too late to
remember
and yesterday
never was.

The tears and
smiles on faces,
for long too young,
now old, and
the articles and
facts and
fortunes
are old science, but
yesterday
can never planned ahead
for.

Old poems
and notes
on Buddhism
sing to me
the hope
of a younger
man whose
life was ahead of
him.

An Olympian existence
of love and ambrosia
that never was.

Now it is
the pyrrhic victory
I have yet to win.