"allegheny" poems
I waited today for a freight train to pass.
Cattle cars with steers butting their horns against the
bars, went by.
And a half a dozen hoboes stood on bumpers between
cars.
Well, the cattle are respectable, I thought.
Every steer has its transportation paid for by the farmer
sending it to market,
While the hoboes are law-breakers in riding a railroad
train without a ticket.
It reminded me of ten days I spent in the Allegheny
County jail in Pittsburgh.
I got ten days even though I was a veteran of the
Spanish-American war.
Cooped in the same cell with me was an old man, a
bricklayer and a booze-fighter.
But it just happened he, too, was a veteran soldier, and
he had fought to preserve the Union and free the
*******
We were three in all, the other being a Lithuanian who
got drunk on pay day at the steel works and got to
fighting a policeman;
All the clothes he had was a shirt, pants and shoes--
somebody got his hat and coat and what money he
had left over when he got drunk.
2.4k
olney transportation center.
i put my bag down in the plastic seat next to me and allow the cool musty subway air envelope my senses. the lights are too fluorescent, **** they’re bright. my chest fills with pressure, the cap at my throat holding on desperately to stay put, stay tight. don’t scream. my breath is getting harder now. why do they even hang out with that person? it doesn’t make sense to me. my music gets louder in my ears, smooth bossa nova pounding brain waves. focus on the lyrics. they make me too angry. my lungs are struggling to hang onto the air, it’s coming in and out of my nostrils too fast. my throat is getting too dry, but my water bottle is too heavy. i don’t want to pick it up, i want to keep thinking. why won’t they just listen to me? why won’t they see things my way? how long is this song? it seems like it’s been forever. i’ve passed galaxies and worlds in this subway tunnel, the stars too fast for my eyes to grasp. i can’t think my way out of this one. no amount of thoughts flying around my head can fix the necessity of simply doing nothing. my hand is forced to be empty. i need to bluff. it’s way too bright in here.
logan.
thank god this song is over. i’m going to do homework instead. i don’t like this song very much, but i’m not going to change it. maybe i should turn off the music so i can read better.
wyoming.
hunting park.
erie.
allegheny.
i think i’ll be home soon. i don’t like what they did today, i should listen to my mom more. my eyes are really heavy, i wish i went to bed earlier today. maybe i’ll take a nap when i get home.
susquehanna dauphin.
cecil b. moore.
i don’t like this stop today.
girard.
time is back up to speed. maybe i’ll go to chinatown, buy some moon cakes. the mid autumn festival passed already, i wish i could’ve gone. i don’t really care for half of the things i say i like. maybe it’s a labor of love, to lie about liking something. or maybe i just don’t have the ability to say i don’t like something. but i know i dislike things. i dislike how bright these lights are, **** my migraine is getting stronger. i want to go home. i am going home.
fairmount.
my throat feels like a desert. time to put my phone down. my head hurts too much.
Sep 20, 2022
Sep 20, 2022 at 2:52 PM UTC
Along the shore of the Allegheny River in Pittsburgh
a little girl of about seven, dressed in a track suit
threw chunks of bread to nearby ducks and geese.
The geese, twice the size of their mallard brethren,
aggressively pushed between the ducks
to gobble up each morsel.
The girl placed her hands on her hips
and scolded the winged despots for their greed.
A few of the ducks joined in the protest,
and quacked in solidarity, for justice.
The geese remained undeterred in their conquest.
Clearly frustrated, the little girl gave up.
She handed the bag of bread to her mother
and then ran off to join a group of older children
playing frisbee in a nearby grass field.
The ruling geese and the victimized ducks
continued to swim near the shore,
hungry and confused,
and without that reliable food source.
Jul 19, 2017
Jul 19, 2017 at 7:54 PM UTC
much life observed..
its mirror
has reflected
over a century of faces..
a covered wagon
climbing Allegheny gaps..
arriving now
in its present station
decorated each season..
now dressed awaiting
costumed children
with their bags
of treats..
it has not always
reflected
joy and celebration
undoubtedly many sorrows
its mirror was shown..
taken for granted
many stored muddy boots
hats soaked with sweat..
a chair holding
warm garments
during cold winters past..
a mirror
must have a
dark back side
for its job of reflecting..
this mirror's darkness
composed of
wet mud and dry dust
the wood encrusted with
deposits of earth..
sorrow and pain
those layers are there..
darkness and glass
formed the mirror
we see..
reflecting
the sun of mornings
as wagon wheels turned..
and quite soon
the laughter of children
on this Halloween..
Oct 10, 2012
Oct 10, 2012 at 10:39 PM UTC
The catamount,
It does appear,
From our fair commonwealth
Has disappeared,
It's just as gone
As gone can be.
Just as the state
Environment folk,
They'll tell you
It's extinct in our fair land.
As is the Nittany Lion,
From its home
Of Pennsylvania.
They say the only Nittany Lion left
Is frozen in perpetual leap
Outside the Penn State football field.
And as a proof,
Her moaning call
Is heard no more
Throughout the Pennsylvania mounts.
We've slain those big cats
One and all
From the Allegheny
To the Blue Ridge.
So when a giant cat
Stretched herself full out
Before our car
Just to cross the street
At the time of her desire,
Not one moment sooner,
Nor one moment later,
We might have almost hit a ghost
But she didn't stick around
To tell us who she was.
The great cat speaks not,
But goes about her business,
If she's there,
And if she's not,
What the heck was that
That crossed the road?
Mar 2, 2014
Mar 2, 2014 at 8:47 PM UTC
The sylvan
Creatures
We're alive
With the
Exhilaration
Of an alien
In their
World.
The crisp
May morning
In the hills
Of West-central
Pennsylvania
Echoed with
The
Celebration
Of life.
As, I
Strode
Towards
The summit
Intersecting
The
Allegheny
River,
The brightest
Blue
Eye
Stared at
Me from
Above.
I
Exalted
In its appeal
And fell
In love
At first
Sight.
Just when
I felt
As
Omnipotent
As Zeus,
Nature
Revealed its
Illogical
Bliss.
My eyes cast
Upon a cotton
Carpet
Hundreds
Of yards
Beneath me
In the valley
Below.
I was walking
Above
A cloud,
As if I was,
At that moment,
God
Looking upon
My
Creation!
Feb 18, 2013
Feb 18, 2013 at 10:41 PM UTC
i.
Such is their reward, then,
This graceful bridge bisecting the lake at Bemus Point,
Not far from the spot where Bishop Vincent
Parsed the geography of the holy land,
Narrow beaches fronting a higgledy-piggledy of cottages,
Most comfortable but staid,
Though the odd McMansion grotesquerie
Has sprouted here and there,
Courtesy of some frozen-food magnate in Buffalo
Or casino second-in-command from Niagara Falls
(Those more famous waters, apparently,
Insufficient to slake ones thirst for the gaudy)
In any case, likely no more than admired from afar
By those generations of boys
Who, leaving their spot on the line at Crescent Tools
Or fields rife with bumble-striped heifers,
Never returned, drill press unmanned, corn crib unattended.
ii.
You’d been on those waters once, however,
Spending an afternoon both bewitching and idyllic
On a dock fronting a relatively humble beach bungalow
(A friend of a family friend or relative’s place,
The whos and whys lost to the manila folders of recollection)
With a girl of ten, perhaps twelve at the outside,
Beautiful in an untrammeled manner,
Or at least primarily, unconsciously so,
And you remember her having green eyes
Which utterly belied description
(Though that was all long ago,
Such reminiscence likely no more than the rheuminess of memory,
And you have not returned to that shoreline since.)
iii.
Such daydreams are perilous, on many levels,
At seventy miles per hour even more so,
And you shake yourself back to the present
While approaching yet another bridge
(Humble span noting humble beginnings)
Honoring the region’s most famous daughter and her husband,
Who did indeed have much ‘splaining to do,
As you proceed eastbound toward Salamanca
(Wholly owned by the Seneca Nation,
Those non-native descendants of Mertzes and McGillicuddys
Paying rent and fealty to the tribe each year)
And thence to the slump-shouldered hills
Which shelter the sauntering Allegheny,
The pines thick, green, inscrutable,
Beyond our everday squabbles,
Answerable to nothing but time itself.
May 29, 2018
May 29, 2018 at 12:26 PM UTC
10 pm in front of Chipotle
and you said, this is my [rusty] Chevy [something],
which had a radio that played exceptional static
for us to tune out on the trek to Mount Washington.
It was raining, but we had already driven all that way
and so we stood outside anyways
in the low hanging clouds above Pittsburgh.
I said, I’ve never been on a date
with a girl before.
And you said, is it everything you thought it’d be?
And with that
we decided to see who could throw a rock the farthest
[which you won]
and who could name more constellations
[which nobody won, because there
were no stars in sight on that Tuesday night].
Then the couple next to us left
and a new one arrived
and the blanket of fog temporarily lifted
to reveal the UPMC logo.
We watched as the number of tiny office lights
diminished, looking a little bit like an end of the world
power outage in slow motion—
and we silently shrunk in the weight of the moment
as the Earth turned and dragged the seconds along,
and the water of the Allegheny and Monongahela
merged into the Ohio the way our bodies connected at the hands;
two posterchildlesbians showing a city
how
to
fall
in love.
Jun 14, 2018
Jun 14, 2018 at 3:17 AM UTC
My bold peridot grassland jewel ...Wrapped in a golden band of Allegheny sunlight , covered in Montana blue dreams .....
I see her bold outlines , the face of Obsidian mingled within White Pine , suspended in lavender horizons , sailing eastward to sea ..
Mar 29, 2016
Mar 29, 2016 at 7:55 PM UTC
in the highlands, on top of a hill
it sits like a castle of broken will
closed for years, it's occupied still
by lowly souls who are unfulfilled
the chains and shackles redeem their pain
they rattle with rusty dying moans
the empty corridors scream in vain
these tortured souls are still alone
the ***** tables and ****** straps
can no longer hold the desperate minds
misery and death, in human traps
hands can't pray when tied in binds
they scream their stories into my ear
they show the scenes to my crying eyes
ghosts of doom, torture, and fear
stuck in between, where angels never fly
in the highlands, on top of a hill
it sits like a castle of broken will
closed for years, it's occupied still
by lowly souls who are unfulfilled
Feb 5, 2015
Feb 5, 2015 at 12:01 PM UTC
I've been traveling,
Trying to return to my roots,
So return I did,
Returned to the woods,
That carpet the mountains of the Appalachian.
Up the mountains I climbed,
An old rifle slung across my back,
Boonie cap keeping eyes free from the harsh glare of the sun as it filters through the canopy above
Trying to find on the mountain that I've been lacking in the North..
Wildlife is active all around,
A breeze is flowing up the mountain,
Whisking the settling heat up and past the peak,
My footfalls soft and sure.
I come across old trails I haven't seen in years,
Mostly washed away and rendered impassible.
On the eastern face I find the remnants of a forest fire.
The field that once held nothing but cinders littered with healthy saplings,
Already taller than I,
New deer trails and bedding areas,
The old ones I discover to be abandoned and the new roost of varmint.
It finally strikes me,
As I descend off of the old mountain,
The truth of what it was I lacked,
I fell into the trap that ensnare many a men down in the South.
The trap that the Mountains lay,
From the Adirondacks to the Allegheny,
Of being a timeless place,
Where you are unplugged from the rest of the world,
And everything is simpler,
It's a trap that had not chains to wrap around arms and legs,
But to encase around the mind.
It is easier to leave than last time,
For I know I shall return,
To this little retreat,
In the Daniel Boone National Forest.
May 22, 2017
May 22, 2017 at 5:08 PM UTC
Static cracks in a dormant station
as I pass through Allegheny mountains
Panic stacks a weight substantial
upon a boy devoid of answers
Brain attacking body
as we long to hear the stories once more
Paint the city and the peace corps
with softly spoken words adored
Fleeting brilliance casts an umbra
upon a man divest of function
Still resilient, sister and I
we slowly heal our hearts in time
Stronger now we look ahead
in time we'll find the answers yet
Oct 16, 2014
Oct 16, 2014 at 1:21 PM UTC
Swimming the Allegheny River.
The Allegheny River is a beautiful river set in the heart of the Allegheny Mountains.
When I was a kid we would go camping at a camp site in the Allegheny forest.
My uncle would run his boat.
We would swim in the river almost all day long.
From one side to the other side, it was approximately 1 1/2 miles wide.
We would cross the river by swimming. At least three times a day.
So we swam the Allegheny River every year for about ten year.
Allegheny River in the heart of Pennsylvania a river of fun.
Sep 4, 2014
Sep 4, 2014 at 9:57 PM UTC
(BLT challenge: song titles from one singer)
This is the story of THE STRANGEST ROMANCE I ever encountered.
It didn’t involve me because I was then TOO YOUNG TO GO STEADY. I hadn’t even purchased my FIRST FORMAL GOWN yet. MOST PEOPLE GET MARRIED, under the ALLEGHENY MOON in this part of the country, but this couple said no to that. I kept telling them to GO ON WITH THE WEDDING, but they insisted it would be ANOTHER TIME, ANOTHER PLACE. I then suggested OLD CAPE COD, but they said THE WALL has ears, and if anyone found out they were eloping, it would be GOODBYE CHARLIE. I told them to TRUST IN ME and I wasn’t FIBBIN’ when I said it. They said: REPEAT AFTER ME: “I’LL REMEMBER TODAY and keep your secret. I swear this on a CROSS OF GOLD”
Swearing on a gold cross made my heart go PIDDLY PATTER PATTER and I now felt like WITH MY EYES WIDE OPEN I’M DREAMING. They told me to HUSH, HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE, and to GO ON HOME.
I had my Walk-man on, so I trudged home with THE SOUND OF MUSIC in my ears, but the walk seemed like TWO THOUSAND, TWO HUNDRED, TWENTY THREE MILES, and as I thought about their rejection of me, I WISH I’D NEVER BEEN BORN. Being brushed aside like that left me with A BROKEN HEART AND A PILLOW FILLED WITH TEARS.
EVERY TIME I think about that day, I want to throw MAMA FROM THE TRAIN for not letting me even go to their wedding when it finally happened. I had kept their secret and told no one. I’m proud of me.
ljm
Jun 9, 2021
Jun 9, 2021 at 5:50 PM UTC