an act of genius has proclaimed
all lands between the tracks
and the fence by the street
to be the dumping grounds
for throwaway children of disemboweled lives –
I know this because I’m on the train
and the lives are scattered down hillsides
to meet me traveling south, waving hello
just as the children did a hundred years ago
when the U.P. came in driving economies.
There’s no economies carried on tracks anymore.
There’s no life-pumping-platelets of oxygen cars
to far flung extremities desperate for air,
for news of the combines, the Mexicans,
now dead, all of them run out with John Henry
by that steam driver
(that God Damned steam driver)
It doesn’t matter about the tracks,
just scars for junk across my babies arms –
she’s got ‘em right into her crotch
spread wide for euphoric delivery
just at the entrance to her Michiganic womb.
There was a TV, maybe from the golden era
waiting for me to tune in and watch the tires
burning on a hillside with a rusted out car
(who loses a car, or forgets it to rust in train corridors?)
where are my children, with 10 toes and 10 fingers?
where is the life that bleeds crimson from these spikes
driven deep into her soul – these speeding needles
devoid of humanity any more – (budget crisis)(funding cut)
they get in a mini-van, ride the black asphalt
deep into a midnight burn of last years crops
one more time –
for the shareholders if you please.
divide, conquer, split your soul in two
and now, NYSE as can be, we’ll arrive
At Pennsylvania Station on 34th and 7th Ave.
screaming at low volumes
