Trains Of Echoes

Trains of echoes
Haunt the dark
Hunt the light
Run the tunnels
Of the night ...

Iron Sculptures Americana ~ Black Iron Train To Chicago: Sculptures In The Wheelhouse

Prologue ...

Trains of echoes

Haunt the dark

Hunt the light

Run the tunnels

Of the night ...

~ Iron Sculptures Americana ~

The blackened wheels
Of the midland train
Are heavy in the night,
Drumbling down
Drumbling the ground

Hammering down
Hammering the sound
Slammin’ the track
Slammin’ the ground
Heavy into the night

Chasing the light and
Turning the whistled echoes,
Slip skimming the slumbered ground
From afar
Echoing upon echo,

Through prairie towns,
Rumble the ground
Trumble the cars
Midwestern beneath the stars,

The Jangle jingled Jangled,
Black iron panther,
Pulling the night freight,
Coursing America’s lifelines.

Black blue smoke
Streaming and screaming,
Rooster-tails chasing the thunder,
Under the dark purple
Night sky of America

To heart lines that weave
The wheat fields of ambered,
Big-backed heartlands of America,
The darkened wheels
Power and hammer-down,

The iron, then the steel
Slappin’ the track
Slappin’ the ground

Slap the track
Slap the sound
Slice and suck the air,
Thunder and swoosh
The currents aground,

a-hammerin’ down
The slappin' sound
Of rhythmic circled notes,
That sling-cling
Above old hooved scars
In the Buffalo lands of Americana

And the midnight music
Of all through the night to Chicago,
A-hammerin’ down,
The night-lighted train
Mourns its horn
Through another town,

Iron and steel
The workin’ brawn of America
Night running to Chicago
From afar,

As Iron pig cars
Trail with hooked tails
And steel tongues,
Drawn, driven and toggled,
Stretched and pulled
By the black steel engined night panther,

Sweating sleek,
Muscle sculpted forearms,
Churning the fire furnaced front wheels
And her back thighs,
Twin demons
Screaming grooved wheels
In a chorused cacophony
Of track and wooden ties,
Moaning under the sweat-sweet madness
Of power and sparks jumping crazily,

The dark framed fireworks,
Brimstoned and catapulted
Into the empty night
Of endless prairie lands
And a sod busting hungry America,

While her long, streching haunches
Uncoil a rhythmic cadence
Of bold runs and looping sprints
To the wheel houses
And switching yards,
Of zoo sheds of panthers,
Steam streamers and six legged coal eaters,

Iron resting, steel twitching,
Down cooling down
Sitting heavy on silenced,
Massive circles of steel,

A waiting to hammer down
To clamber clap and
Slap the track away
From the roundhouses of Chicago,

Back to the night runs
Through prairie hamlets
And the sacred lands
Of ancient peoples,
And through the Great Plains of America,

The night sound streamer
Hammers down
Clamber clapping
Wheels a-slapping
Meandering track and trestle,

Hell-bent, straight-line and bulleted,
The hinterland rail-bound vessel
Round-hammers the night-silk cover
And the nocturnal orchestra
Of a freight train
A-hammerin’ down,

The dark-orbed wheels
Of the panther, slappin’ the sound
Into nights of myth and magic,
Where iron horses, black panthers,
Night trains and the track runners
Of America’s lifelines,

Circle one another
In Train Dance choreography,
As the steel phantoms,
Amid moon shimmer
And cloud-star dapple,
Rendezvous a great and timeless switching yard,

Drawn to this evening’s oasis
And the prairie's midnight gathering
Of the locomotives of a thousand horses,

And the Great Plains
Black steel rail runners
And the mighty, silver-laced
Iron-red bulls from the East,
Weavers and climbers of mountains,

And the raw-dark, steel sheened
High-ridge runners and down-racers
From the valleys of the South,

To then, the night horned echo, echo
From across the Western flatlands,
The desert sprinter
Powers her path,

Slicing the heat unto waves
And the whip-pool wakes
Of furnace thundered currents,
Amid the shimmered radiance
Of sounding, rounding feet,
Savaging hotter than the desert heat

And pulls cool
Into the longward lands
Of last grand call
While the lung lust of bagpipers
Beacons the midnight sight

And the night-run quest
To the Mecca
Of the legends of the past
And the legions of the night,

She melds majestic
In hosanna homage
And with steel
And iron sculptures Americana,

Sings out in tribute
To the clarioned music
And the sonata of wheels
And whistles upon the wind...

Early Rose Forever Rose

An early rose

Dances the garden

On ballerina toes

And comes as quickly

As thou hath come to be

In meadows of memory

Under showers of melody

A symphony of swirl and swash

Of petals and notes afloat

The breezes of time

Riding the echoes

Of a nursery rhyme

For when we were

A wee bit girl and boy,

Amid the twirl of blossoms furl,

I sought back then

To be thy beau

For which reason

I did not know

Until my season

As a young man came,

Flush and warm across my brow,

Searching crowds for you,

And yet not knowing how

To navigate upon the seas of chance

And while standing firm

Within the bow,

We passed as ships, star-crossed

Upon the waters of the night,

And yet, now every year,

As the red of rosebuds’

Brilliant bright against the snow

Winter’s dance with Spring

Shall set thy heart’s bud

Burst in glimmer glow

For always my hope will be

Thou come to know

I cared for thee

As April's rain

Will come to show

How wet and sweet

The roses grow.

Where is Emily Where is Jack?

The childless die hard

They kick against demons

They push against the end

and die crawling into the past,

Never quite believing

It could end this way.

No send off

No goodbye

Only cold faces

From another neighborhood:

"Just go and be done with it!"

You see in their eyes.

"We have work to do,

because of you."

They seem to say.

But they don't know

For when i was young, so beautiful,

There was always time

To borrow against tomorrow,

To dance far into the evening

Of my Daughter's wedding,

Toasting a glass at my Son's

Henceforth passing easy

With sweet remembrance

Of their nursery rhyme.

Passing easy into time...

Black Bumble, Tumble Bee

... on the front porch
When first i noticed him,
On his side, curled up
And moist from dew
And dressed in black
With startlingly yellow,
A patch across his upper back.

Dead,
I thought.

But, oh how intricate
And beautiful his design,
And as i pushed him
Onto a scrap of paper,
He appeared to move a bit
And alas, continued on
His crawling into the cold,
Out from the cold
And into the forever.

Inside, i placed him on the desk,
And he pulled himself along,
And contrasting against the white blotter,
He reached the edge
An hour's journey later,
And rested in eternity,

As thousands of flowers and vines
That he had pollinated
In his Summer weavings,
Now waved goodbye and rippled
In November's breeze, awaiting their turn
To slip into early Fall's seductress
Of gentle frost and freeze.

What a sensitive man, you say?
Nay! Bullpuck! Bullpuck!
Let me slap shot this across your bow:
We were both warriors of the Summer
In a manner you'll never know how!

So brace yourself, my lad
And never smirk
The least bit spot of life,

And as the world and time
Both churn you along,
Tip your hat to the universe
And choose a god or not,

But never flout creation's rhyme
Nor the rhythm of the seasons
Lest you find

They've passed you bye,

Turned and left you out.