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.......... "Words like smoke insinuations, coalesced first gray, then blue..."
.............The Poetry Of
................... Wayne Noone


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

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