"susquehanna" poems
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.
2k
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
Nov 28, 2014
Nov 28, 2014 at 9:22 AM UTC
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.
Jan 29, 2018
Jan 29, 2018 at 8:37 PM UTC
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.
Feb 7, 2017
Feb 7, 2017 at 6:26 AM UTC
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
As I scraped the Susquehanna
Curved the road away,
The sky sagged down upon the view
The garb of mist and grey.
On through the glass, where rivulets
Sought earth instead of metal
The city-line escaped my eyes
My foot pressed past the pedal.
Another place, another time
Another rainy day
The dewdrops misting earthward
Jeweled the leaves along the way.
My body sweeps the filthy streets
My eyes stretch up on high
They seek the metal corpses with an
Unabsorbing eye.
While miles away, I'm wandering
A faded forest path
And pacing past the places
Where our bodies pressed the grass.
Apr 6, 2017
Apr 6, 2017 at 10:25 PM UTC
I'm in Pittsburgh all the fuckin' 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.
Sep 28, 2014
Sep 28, 2014 at 12:07 AM UTC
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.
Sep 30, 2016
Sep 30, 2016 at 12:05 PM UTC
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.
Mar 21, 2016
Mar 21, 2016 at 7:53 AM UTC
i left a few hair ties,
half a bottle of lavander shampoo,
and my favorite knit sweater
in a west coast city
i'm heart-set,
i'm hell-bent,
i'm coming home
this east coast blood
boils too quickly
in the sun
we are addicted to
seven different kinds of pills
& we are slurring our words
with sleeves pulled over our wrists
& we are counting down the days
til this ends,
but we don't know what this is
or what happens to us when it breaks
so we are skipping rocks across
the susquehanna and
speeding down 6 and 11
to the diner off college ave
& my eyes are burning from the wind
ripping through this quiet town,
and i can wear that thick hoodie
you bought me in philly,
with flannel interior
(i like that hoodie,
it smells like the warehouse
we snuck off to,
to smoke your dad's
cigarettes when we were
fourteen and first flirting
with the decline that we're
now hopelessly devoted to)
but my organs
will shiver each time
you change shifts
on the way out of town;
chilled to the bone;
an omnipresent ache
we are running to jersey again,
for a salt water sunday
and a breath of ***** air
always taking laps around the tri-state,
trying to stop the boredom from
burning holes in our shoes
so portland,
hold my hand,
drag me back,
my legs are tired
from all this running
& i need you now
*west coast whispers,
west coast whispers,
you're safe here
where the ocean
meets the land.
i'll hold your hand*
Oct 18, 2015
Oct 18, 2015 at 3:52 PM UTC
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
Jan 6, 2018
Jan 6, 2018 at 9:22 AM UTC
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.
Sep 21, 2021
Sep 21, 2021 at 12:25 PM UTC