I drove down state road seventeen
without seeing a single car.

It was sunny, arguably first days of spring.

Mexican men worked in the apple orchards.
They stood on ladders, pruning branches in a cloud of pink apple blossoms.

Smoke streams from my window, static hangs over the voices on the radio.

I turn right at grainery, I find the first town for miles.

After a high narrow bridge over Snake River,
I pull off near an abandon barn and take a ****.

I wonder how many people have killed themselves jumping from that bridge.
To live in isolation, and still be unable to escape. What do they run from?

There is no sound anywhere, except for me urinating.
Not the wind, nor animals, or machines. Only me.

Back on the road I drive on the edge of valley after valley.
The sun folds the sky into different shades.

The hills of the valleys are smooth from
millions of years of wind and rain.

The soil is thick with the silt of ashes, and sand.
The hills roll onward, almost forever.

I think back to the Mexican men working in the orchards.
Do they thank the rain, the silt, the rock?

Do I?

I approach my destination.
I greet my friend.

I observe his toddler as it learns to walk.

That night, my friend and I sit on stools.
In between drinks, I ask my friend,
"Do you thank the rain, the silt, and the rock?"

"When I remember to," he said.

The ancient tacoma grainery,
Stands in a corner of its own now.
Tne dark tunnell still has leggs when
she lets go.
The dock street rail yard fills up the city like a
loaf of hotnsteamy bread.
Farther down our ambitious tycoon
Stacks up condos, wheat pancakes,
Is his breakfast of choice.
They demolished the old elks club.
Which sprung across the street
like a walmart super store.
Blue and yellow is workers vest
perks and all.  Their members still
grase for golfballs off the ten million dollar tees.
There isnt much enjoyment, they'd rather drink.
Last month my two foot clarks walked through the sliding dorrs hospitality.
Wanting to see the high mountain of sucess,
I looked for organic oats.  
My minds to random.
I inch up to the screen and see the faces of migrant workers,
Hang like meat.
After six months in america half the under employed,
Are giving up.
Deported with their children.
My hope still goes out to the college students.
And their first morgage of inflamatory dough.
They all buy up every job still hoping for change.
No marrijuana in public,
Get away while the officers turn their backs,
With their guns to pepper a face.
In the taxing store.
Im afraid we smoked heavilly.
Love to the workers,
Love to their vests.
Everythings devoliping to quick.
My new bike slices by cars of ritz crackers.
Everthings been built to last.
There nothing left to buil on,
Only a few vacent lots that wait for tresspassers.
One man dives through a trash can and isnt scared.
He picks out a hamburger bun and eats his lunch.

My friends a pizza cowboy
My uncles a interpreter
For the grainery
My cousin lives inside
Dry mouths
and my mother
Makes fake smiles
my other cousin
sticks his pruned up
Hands in rivers of unwanted
pasta
My father makes sure
Boats do not go gently
Against the stolen tides.
I think of the underdogs
Whenever were all together
We sit on the same green couches
Durring the holidays.
The same ones that tell us
No matter what happens
Were going to be ok.  We sink
And recline in the coushins
And forget about
Nine to five for a few honest hours.  
While we drink and eat and lauph
Underneath the same old popcorn celings.
The same living room
Where every thing happening now
never went unoticed because
Ireland found England after
The bombs after the soccer game
Where she said (after the game)
"I want nothing to do with that *******"
Are you sure about that grandma.
Better stay away from uncle george (the keeper)
He wants you to meet his friend (the forward)
Who played for the Blackburn rovers.

When you Live by a Rail Road Tracks...
Behind the House in the, Yard in the Back
When I was young I heard the Rumble of it
Coming to Carry the grain from our Grainery
But no sound of Locomotive hums in the rail
The Grain's now Hauled off by Grain Semi's
This Line got Cut in Budget Shifts.....
So now the only thing to Ride the Rail
Is the Snow as it blows and turns into Drifts
But, on windy Nights some say that
Ghost of the tracks of the Southern,
Blows its whistle as it Rolls Past...


All the Work here is licensed under the Name
®SilverSilkenTongue and the © Property of J.Flack