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"Words like smoke insinuations, coalesced first gray, then blue..."
.............The Poetry Of
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Wayne Noone
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God's Train
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We read in the sixth chapter of Isaiah
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that the Lord's Train was so big
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It filled the temple.
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I think that Train is so big
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it makes its way to earth sometimes.
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And I think it must've been His train casting
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rocks of coal
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across the tracks where my father and his brother Steve
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picked them up in sacks based
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on their father's promise.
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See, old Bela said that if they'd
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fill the coal bin
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they'd get a case of pop and they filled
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that bin but when they asked for the pop
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he just laughed and
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the posts of the door moved
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and the house was filled with smoke.
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It must have been His Train barreling down
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the Wabash Line through Heidelburg
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shearing off the legs
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and killing my Uncle Gus stumbling drunk across the tracks
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but all that was before I was born, see
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I am a man of unclean lips
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in the midst of a people of unclean lips.
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It was His Train made the metal scream
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when it hit Matthew Swierdorski
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on leave from the Navy and three friends
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whose car had the bad luck to stall out
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on the tracks as I stood urinating
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in an alley behind Talotta's Bar about
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a hundred yards away and He made
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the heart of this people fat, and shut their eyes
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lest they see with their eyes.
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And I know it was His Train I heard this morning
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echoing through the cracking cold.
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This February morning,
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when the land was utterly desolate
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and the Lord had removed men far away.
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And the whole land was asleep
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save me.
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White Christmas
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This time of year
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you’ll see him,
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crooning around in his Packard,
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Bing Crosby.
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Brown felt fedora cocked,
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collar of his overcoat up
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against the cold,
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sprig of holly through his lapel.
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Pale eyed,
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pipe in hand, he’s whistling,
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while nestled
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in his trunk he’s got
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a twelve year old,
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trussed so tight
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she squeaks.
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Birthday Boy
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For the life of me
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I can appreciate no continuity
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between some fresh and purple infant
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thrust squalling from my
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mother's cunt
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and this graying wreck,
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double chinned and bad
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kneed, dead end jobbed
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and car leaking coolant,
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whose first thoughts this morning
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ran to the choreography
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of a well placed
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head shot.
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But my sister, fifteen
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years my senior
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remembers this:
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watching out the window
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that December day forty
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six years ago, Dad
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back from the hospital,
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pulling into the lot,
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cigar thrust in his mouth,
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with a grin that could
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crack the world.
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