I only see your shoes at first
Then I look up to witness all of you
You overpower me with your presence
Just standing there, waiting

You waited for me at my place
On a bridge on the Susquehanna
That flimsy little bridge
That rocked us to and fro

The bridge started to sway
In the tumultuous winds
I said I was scared
But you did not ever go

You shocked me on that bridge
Our moment on the Susquehanna
Because you held me in that moment
Like you'd never let me go

You looked at me and said
"I just want you to always know..."
On our bridge on the Susquehanna
That rocked us to and fro

But after, you left
Without me knowing what I should know
And now I'm here on the Susquehanna
Trying hard to let you go

I have been in Pennsylvania,
In the Monongahela and Hocking Valleys.

In the blue Susquehanna
On a Saturday morning
I saw a mounted constabulary go by,
I saw boys playing marbles.
Spring and the hills laughed.

And in places
Along the Appalachian chain,
I saw steel arms handling coal and iron,
And I saw the white-cauliflower faces
Of miner's wives waiting for the men to come home from the day's work.

I made color studies in crimson and violet
Over the dust and domes of culm at sunset.

After the Big War,
his uncles came home
(some of them)
different men but
bearing souvenirs
of devastation.

One was a rifle,
a Karabiner-98,
with stains of death
on its wooden stock.

His uncle wouldn't say
just how he got it.

When his uncle died,
the weapon came to him.

It spoke to him
of glory and bravery.

He was proud to hold
that dead German's gun.

Not many years later,
he returned, shattered,
from his own war.

His only souvenirs
burned in his head.

One *** shrouded night
he tossed the rifle into
the Susquehanna River.

Never again did he
own another weapon.

Comes a time for the
circle to be broken.

Perhaps it was her voice itself, clear and simple,
Unalloyed by any classically trained fol-de-rol,
Or possibly the nature of her faith
Displayed with such clarity, such transparency
By that very instrument,
But in any case, she had utterly bewitched the populace
Of the place known as Ahwaga by her distant cousins,
And when she stood on the Delaware & Hudson platform
The next morning, they had cheered her lustily,
All but begging her You must return to us,
But the train had lost its footing on a sharp grade
Mere hundreds of yards before making the station at Deposit,
And she was lost in the carnage and conflagration.
The townspeople she had said her farewells to that morning
Were distraught, their feelings a mix of grief
And an odd sense of culpability, a nagging misgiving
That perhaps this was an omen, some augury
Denoting that their own faith was not up to scratch,
And so they had taken her back to their own burgh
To bury her in a manner befitting her piety
(She had been travelling with siblings,
But they acquiesced to the plan, though how willingly
Not wholly apparent at the time,
And made no clearer through the ramble of time)
And so she was laid to rest in a plot
Surrounded by ornate fencing, her grave marked
By an obelisk pointing unambiguously to her Heaven,
And it is said that, on autumn evenings
When the breeze rustle the dying leaves just so,
You can hear the spirits of her Mohawk brethren
Come down from Quebec, murmuring songs
Telling of the spirits living in the trees and hedgerows,
Spoken in the ancient tongue
Of the languid, unhurried Susquehanna far below.

I'm in Pittsburgh all the ******' time. Well, I used to be.**

I used to go bridge jumping,
lace ***** bungie jumping.
I had options, now it's Market St.
over the Susquehanna or the
long bar at the pub.
****! I miss the Steel City like
missed calls, not at all then all at once.
Stuck in Pepsi-Cola Central, Pennsylvania, in an armchair down the hall from my room flooded with pictures of lovely Pittsburgh. Single-pane windows come close to glass
skyscrapers. Kind of.

Not at all.

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.

Long ago
Long before the dawn of his youth
Lived a boy, a young boy
A boy who had a dream
A childhood dream.
He would lay at the forest glade
And gaze, gaze in wonder
At the peculiar workings of the earth.
He would count all the birds of the sky
Wander into the dark forest deep
Stroll by the humming river
And paint with all the colors of the earth.
The night's inner glow,
The wild's cheerful tune;
All of earth's splashy marvel
Would prompt his thoughts
To travel the world
In search of a secret.
The blue waters of the Pacific seemed a decent start, he thought
Perhaps a swim in the depths of Waikiki Beach
Or a hike up Mt. Rainier
A stroll in the scenic wonderlands of Northern Idaho
Maybe a nice dinner in Broadmoor Hotel at Colorado Springs
Or build a cabin in Minnesota's lake country
A day picnic at Mt. Chocorua
A quick walk down Boston Common
Or a Tulip time at Bronx,
Drifted his mind.
Bend of Susquehanna, Cayuga Lake, Chesapeake Bay, Rehoboth Beach
Flashed upon his sight.
Then one day, not long ago
To his surprise
He found the secret
Veiled in one who owns his heart.

i’ve found my peace in the pieces of pennsylvania

underneath blue collar crowns and in the reflection of pittsburgh plate glass

and in the dark damp basements where i got really drunk

in the homes where the men from the mills raised their families

i can still hear my television technician telling me that i’m a good girl

and he made me believe it.  in my bedtime prayers and in my sunday best, i believed it with all my heart

which i followed down route 22 and into centre county

where the amazing grace of a mifflin county man saved a wretch like me

and i spent last summer on a soul sister’s bed as the sun set over the susquehanna valley

i found treasure in pennsylvania and i never even had to pick up a shovel

i just had to pick up

the interstate was a pearly gate into being born again.

pennsylvania still waits for me and saves a place at her table

and no matter how many miles or mistakes i make, i’ll have my television technician and my soul sister and my heaven-sent kevin

i’ll have pittsburgh plate glass and the public broadcasting service

i’ll have blue collar crowns and all american towns but not enough money for the homecoming gown

but that’s okay.  pennsylvania thinks i’m pretty anyway.

Back in the day before the game quit us,
We’d balled down at the rec center with an old guy
Who went by the name of Terry Easy.
He was there every afternoon, every night
(As far as we knew, he’d been there forever,
The joke being Hell, man, Easy was there
Three minutes after they got the floor down.)
Big old dude, but you could tell from the way he moved,
Even the way he walked, that he had game at one time,
Though he’d gotten to the wrong side of the transition
From solid to just plain fat
(We’d woof at him Easy, you get any more flab on your *******
And we’re gonna have to go from shirts-and-skins
To bras-and-blouses, for chrissakes.)
And he played with coke-bottle glasses so thick
You figured he couldn’t hit the backboard from outside three feet.
Still, if you didn’t pick the man up a few steps across half-court,
He’d bury you with set shots --‘course, if you played him too tight
He’d just back-door your *** for layups all night
(As far as playing D went, Easy was pretty easy pickings,
Though he’d try to make up for a lack of foot speed
With old man tricks--locking his knee behind yours
To push you off the blocks, a quick grab of the shorts
As you cut through the lane, stuff that starts fights,
Though taking a shot at Easy was just something you didn’t do
Something unspoken that you just knew was out of bounds.)
Between games, Easy would tell stories about his playground days:
He’d played on all the courts with all the legends,
16th and Susquehanna with Lewis Lloyd and Sad-Eyes Watson,
48th and Brown with The Pearl,
Ridgeway Playground with Wilt and Hal Greer.
One day Easy was telling a story about how Greer,
Playing out the string with a Sixers team
That won nine **** games all season,
Was playing against Wilt one night when the Lakers were in town.
Hal went down the lane, and Wilt was right there,
Getting ready to swat the pill…hell, eight, nine rows up,
Maybe halfway to Doylestown, but at the last moment
He pulled his hand back, and let the ball tap, tap, tap on the rim
Before it dropped through for two
(For old times’ sake, Wilt said later.)
Hal didn’t see it that way, giving Wilt a shove and glaring at him
All the way back down court, and after the game
He stormed into the Laker locker room,
Screaming Where the **** is Wilt? I’m gonna beat his ***!
And, catching sight of the big man, hollered ever louder
You play it straight with me, *******, you hear me?
You never disrespect my *** on the court again! Never!
All the time two or three guys holding Hal back
(And understand, Wilt was the biggest, baddest man in the game;
Hell, one time he picked up Mel Daniels,
Six-feet-nine of evil and bad temper, like a Raggedy Andy)
And the big man never said a word, ‘cause he knew was wrong,
So Terry told the story, anyway,
And Easy should have stopped right there,
‘Cause the story was over, but old men get foolish, get all soppy,
So he says Hal was right, understand-;
You just can’t do that to a man.
Old player like Greer, maybe all he’s got left is his pride,
Like some old lion who can’t hunt no more, but he’s earned that.
Gotta let a lion have his pride, and after he finished
All the young ‘uns just hooted at him
Man, Easy, you do go on, and for months afterward
Every time the dude covering him turned his head
And gave Easy an easy bucket, everyone on the court
Would just laugh, and yell That’s good huntin’, man.
Roar, lion, roar.

Something special bout this bridge
As the day's Sun rest west
Something special crossing that bridge
As the day's sky glowed red
Church steeples guiding the way
Chasing my fears away
Chasing sunsets across that bridge
That old Susquehanna River
Crossing her west at sunset
Church steeples chasing my fears away.
To bring me home.

Dennis Faulk
11 13 16

He was, to be sure, very impressive indeed,
His bearing and carriage not of someone on his way
As much as one who had truly arrived:
Sleek, self-assured, possessing the calm of one
Who fully understands just how powerful he is,
One who has not embraced the company culture
As much as self-immersed in it,
To the point where it has so permeated his structure
That is hard to tell where he begins and it ends.
And yet, there is something unsettling there,
The odd non sequiturs, disturbing enough
In their utter and unconscious wrong-headedness,
But even more so
In the motorized, perfunctory method of their delivery,
As if it were obvious that it is we who are clearly incorrect.

Some three hours of drive time away,
Past any number of Holiday Inn Expresses,
Past numerous faded and shuttered Catskill resorts,
A handful of people carrying standard-issue banker’s boxes
Containing the detritus of twenty or thirty years of work
Exit the vestigial office the company maintains in its birthplace
(Only there as a nod to history, a sop to the locals and legislators.)
We hate to lose good people,
The HR person who drove up for the occasion
Intones solemnly to a handful of reporters
Who slouch nonchalantly in folding chairs
Scattered about a small, Seventies-wood-paneled conference room,
But there are certain market inefficiencies at work,
International incidents, kinks in the supply chain,
Other anomalies the forecasting tools
And business models couldn’t have foreseen.
And as he speaks, one of the newly superfluous
Wordlessly enters her car, pointing it homeward,
Across the sluggish, ice-clogged Susquehanna traversing  a bridge Commemorating a giant of cash registers and calculators.

No Logs
No Fireplace
No Cookout
The wood was used to craft into Toy Scale Model Buses
Sounds strange?
Yes, Wood was used in creating Genuine Authentic Moving Models
Visualize highway buses, and think of the wood being part of the setting
I am a witness to it
I have in my collection of actual buses made out of wood being the work done by a Deceased Susquehanna Trailways Motor Coach Engineer
How were these buses carved into a bus
It was careful study being the tracing and using cardboard to capture the right detail once the analysis was done
Then came constructing the wood one Carve into design at a time
I am honored to have in my bus collection of 7 Wood bus models from the creator himself and remembrance of a Trailways Motor Coach Engineer
A Motor Coach Operator with more than just drive, but a vision to create into sculpture
Eyes of Wood
Woody detail of could
Design
Craftsmanship that always came out fine.

a voice that belongs to the winds of the wilderness
strong thighs running like the Susquehanna through its cold, grey morning
she speaks from the hearth of her gut of a lust for life
dives through the waves and into the distance
never to be seen again

you were a flash of vibrant color,
then my back hit the ground.

suddenly,
my chest was breathless
and i watched vile things grow from the pause in my body

collecting by the Susquehanna when you never came,
i knew impotence would follow me home to Hatfield
and it did,

more rot from frozen frames
when being locked up got me locked up
a nightmare blossomed

i sang of black roses on your bedroom door

but there were red ones too.

i sat and played back colors on the projector screen
and said my favorite one was blonde,
so strong
so rect
Alive

feeling these new thorns
that were not yours
they made me wish i'd held you more gingerly

because then you were other things
loosing blood you didn't need
and staring at me from space with one black
empty eye
******* at life with your emptiness
keeping kernels that tell questions
and filling sacred chests
with ugly floods of color

now you unfold over that ridge,
San Antonio
far from anything and anyone
i've ever known

totally novel.

liberation beckons me

liberation from the past
from self-pity
from the dirt you shoveled early

& for the first time that girl
is fading from my mind
but i'm in love with it.

i don't think she'll ever really leave.