"westbound" poems
I’d worked late the previous night,
programing applications.
When the alarm went off at four A.M.
I hit snooze- no hesitation.
Eventually my feet found floor,
I stumbled to the shower.
A routine usually done in ten
took me a half an hour.
I was running up the platform steps
but my train just left the station.
Great, I will be late for sure,
I thought, in consternation.
At least the day was perfect,
Warm and clear, no threat of rain.
I fished and found my ticket
and took the next westbound train.
The ”E” was fairly crowded
When I boarded it at Penn
I’d missed the first and I was glad
Another quickly came.
Beneath the streets of Gotham
The subway lurched downtown.
Above all hell was breaking loose
as two large planes were down.
I climbed the stairs up to the street
And entered the inferno
The sky now black from billowing smoke
Bright day turning nocturnal.
A Seven thirty Seven’s wheel-
I heard a woman screaming
I saw a body at my feet
Were we at war or was I dreaming?
I stared up at my window-
where I worked the night before.
Where flames and smoke leapt to the sky-
where my co workers were no more.
They’re jumping, someone shouted
I saw black specks launch from on high.
Better to die upon the street
Than to suffocate or fry.
I turn and ran, I am ashamed.
No Hero’s tale to tell.
I was a safe way away
when the first tower fell.
Had I not hit the button
or dawdled in the shower.
Had I caught my usual train
I’d be dead in the tower.
This is my shame and burden
To live when others died.
Preserved by fate and circumstance
From terror from the sky.
Jan 27, 2012
Jan 27, 2012 at 11:04 PM UTC
#prairiegrass dreams
*Across the Sandhills
wading into the untamed Niobrara
barebacked.. brown, and beautiful
Within her Misty Mountain dreams
she is heading my way.
Ah, sweet lord God almighty,
look at her go..
Westbound, she is best-found
right there.. on the edge
of these dreams of my own
Oh my lord..
look at that beautiful horsedream go
Will I be able to survive her..
I don't know
. . .
You feel him.. don't you, sweet one..
my beautiful Snickers
on that Gordon, Nebraska hill--
his home, his birthplace..
Until his beautiful spirit
one day.. finally found me
Striated and stoic
he is waiting for you..
To bring, you
the rest of the way home.
North now, into Dakota
as you bleed
with the Lakhóta
on a trail, split
between Pine Ridge..
and Wounded Knee.
Feel your war-torn Spirit
melt in to them
(you will not fall)
As you ride this black-maned dream
just a bit further North..
towards a man, named Paul
Within my own, I can feel you both
Ah hell, babe..
I can feel you all*
#
Sep 30, 2021
Sep 30, 2021 at 9:09 PM UTC
Push a day off to one side
drink in the citrus street light
lock arms with the night
Forty minutes, fifteen thoughts,
a hundred steps to next time
check off the prayers you've tried--
--on frozen fingers. Through
your wind-chapped lips let one more dangle
off your westbound life.
You've been here too long;
You got nothing to lose left,
quiet, spit it out
into the sky
Turn right.
Lay my 20's down to sleep
slept my way through a decade
now open pint glass eyes.
Pushing thirty, since I'm ten
I've been grasping at something--
something undefined
On frozen feet been walk-
-ing south-by-southwest, hands in pockets
clawing empty space.
Haven't got one dime
to toss into the water
but Northwest winds
frame my North-
east face.
Aug 31, 2013
Aug 31, 2013 at 6:34 PM UTC
the hills were beginning to grow
the grass greening on the approach
to Blue Earth, and how
in summer
Minnesota shed her old coat
to shy guilty into brief silty lakes
like the
joy of a little kid, sneaking a forbidden dip.
remarking, casually, about
white warm flowers hung low from
planned oaks, and the impossible way the town
pulled local hills close, to coat
in dandelions. and cultivate
all under an ambitious midwestern sun.
rolling through the stop sign, hand on mine
you told me if you’re moving at all
you should keep it in second gear.
and we had so far to go, but in the light that
broke through westbound clouds,
we became less so.
contented to spread toes out in earth we
dug into Minnesota, the middle coast:
a land we could like to get to know.
and you:
looking down at the salt, the sand, the scars of
the grand american plantation:
the last coast.
knowing that by the next coast, we
you and me.
we'd be through.
saying, ‘how could anybody die?’
saying,
‘how could anybody tell you anything true?’
undercut by the honest waves of the little lake,
the hum that drummed in my gas tank.
trying, for once, at a little piece of truth:
when I leave this place I leave
a part of me behind.
and that part of me
will be you.
saying there’s only so much sweetness in the soil,
only so long after the thaw,
and grief is rich and dark and made for sowing:
must be, for maintaining verdant local hills, must be
for to keep corn sweet. must be for to put
grief
on the table. must be for to
keep with us.
for to keep a little bit to eat.
saying, we bleed but together we make a hole
to bury both our bodies in.
saying there’s a west out west but too late it’s
already hemmed us in.
saying now I am only a fragile assimilation of this weak
and fractured purpose that drives me, and you are
beautiful enough I would lie to let you love me.
even I would scorch this soil if only things wouldn’t grow I would
saying Blue Earth is still in the trucker's atlas is
only an excuse for sunshine. a point,
where freeways go.
saying,
“with earth, so green, that here they call it 'Blue'.”
saying
“I could learn to love a leopard.”
saying
“how dare you.”
Jan 18, 2014
Jan 18, 2014 at 7:20 AM UTC
Just once I knew what life was for.
In Boston, quite suddenly, I understood;
walked there along the Charles River,
watched the lights copying themselves,
all neoned and strobe-hearted, opening
their mouths as wide as opera singers;
counted the stars, my little campaigners,
my scar daisies, and knew that I walked my love
on the night green side of it and cried
my heart to the eastbound cars and cried
my heart to the westbound cars and took
my truth across a small ****** bridge
and hurried my truth, the charm of it, home
and hoarded these constants into morning
only to find them gone.
2.5k
The M6 is slow southbound north of Lymm.
Queuing likely Junctions 4 through to 3.
Accident on the slip-road at Strensham
South. Rubberneckers slowing just to see.
Busy clockwise on the M25.
Overturned tanker - now down to one lane.
Rush-hour traffic, best avoid the drive.
M62 heavy westbound again.
Ongoing road works on the A1 (M).
High sided vehicles avoid the Forth
Bridge. Reports of a breakdown just come in
For those leaving the M5 heading north.........
Felicity comes, I turn off the dial
The traffic has cleared - if just for a while.
Sep 18, 2018
Sep 18, 2018 at 2:30 PM UTC
No service to all westbound destinations due to flooding . . .
At Ravenscourt Park, it rained apocalyptically.
Then, God said:
‘Let go of point-to-point.
Paddle properly, like you mean it.
Hear the gentle song of the hummingbird.
Sip the sweet cup of the orchid.
Steer clear of the piranhas that are possessions;
Swim away from the caiman, who can drag you under.
Take it stroke by stroke. Do not splash about.
Go with my flow.
When your meanderings meet the mighty ocean of my love
Be ready.
This is just the beginning.’
Jul 15, 2021
Jul 15, 2021 at 5:28 PM UTC
sunset faces
seem filled with thoughtful reflection
eyes drawn to their own page of living
and their own written in stone paths
the golden light of the westbound sun
gives its kindness to her weathered face
hides the lines of worry
that have shadowed her days
and in the dark hour
it will be the afterimage of her golden moment
that will sketch this day in ink for me
that will define this place for me
the profile of her face in golden sunset
her proud strong frailty
that her standing spoke so loudly
as to confound the darkness
and in thouse dying embers of daylight
behind and by her side all these silent spectators
to this strange day shall mark it within their own hearts
what they beheld on this side road of humanity's circus
one old woman stood and defeated the darkness
Jan 11, 2014
Jan 11, 2014 at 7:29 PM UTC
The blustery east wind
gathers the fragrant
Warm Springs
high desert
mountain sage,
cascading
downhill
through
Dry Creek pass
surging downward
from above
the Hood River valley,
with breath of sky's bouquet
of billowing
aromatic avalanche,
gushing
of heaven's zephyr
The poignant
sudden starkness
of fiery autumn leaves
letting go
whirling ― falling
helter skelter,
pushed urgently
flying westbound,
beckoned franticly
by
distant whispered
ocean bellows
blowin' in the winds
of change ―
Adrift across
Parkdale
mountain meadows,
Coyote bent,
paw trodden
ripe sweet grasses,
pungent with
waft of mountain sage
and fermenting apples fallen ―
the waxing silence
of the marvelous moon
echoes just beyond
the Lost Lake of the Woods,
its golden orange crescent
dances on clear lake ripples,
high perched
sky reflection lapping
the moon kissed shoreline
― alone ―
The Sliver of the Moon,
skinny lithe
unripened youth
arching
as unsated
summer love ―
sage memories
waxing and waning,
whiffs of honeyed Jasmine
writhing witherings,
coalescent
time drifts onward ―
unstoppable changes
never turning around
looking back
to see
their fading reflection
recurring ―
august rivers 2017
*note to self:
September 15, 16 east wind
Breathing Waft of lingering Mountain Sage
another Autumn soon comes*
... and I'm getting older too
Oct 1, 2017
Oct 1, 2017 at 12:33 PM UTC
to contemplate your beauty
is this poets' guilty pleasure,
but, as we're taking separate trains,
this joy won't last forever.
The play of light upon your face
as you read some Lovers' twit
gives you an aspect of Kabuki
in the station's dark abyss.
Your perfect, doll-like, features
painted porcelain by the light
An oasis of sheer beauty
amidst the station's urban blight.
Too quick, the moment passes.
I board and you remain.
For, you see, I'm headed Westbound
aboard the downtown train.
You reminded me of one I loved
in another place and time.
The girl who is forever young
and never far from mind.
May 2, 2012
May 2, 2012 at 8:40 AM UTC
Staring out into the crimson sky
the westbound sun melts into the horizon.
A red and gold puddle of translucency,
blends into an ocean
of majestic purples and blues.
Pinpoints of light begin to appear
as day succumbs to night.
I stand in silence,
near to tears.
Wondering where you've gone.
The radiance of the emerging moon
shines a beacon into the vastness.
To no avail.
I know that you are gone.
And unlike my faith in dawning sun,
I hold no hope of your return-
Upon the morning.
Jan 5, 2025
Jan 5, 2025 at 11:34 AM UTC
Standing in the tunnel
at Eighth and Pine station,
I survey westbound commuters
waiting across the tracks -
standing arms akimbo
or leaning on marble walls.
A well-suited young man paces the platform -
cell phone pressed to his cheek.
[Passengers stand clear of the
edge of the platform at all times]
Rushing in from the east,
a gleaming white chariot
arrives - pauses - resumes
leaving the far platform vacated
as if by alien abduction
From the left a blazing light
pierces the tunnel
and the Shiloh – Scott eastbound
halts and snaps open its doors.
crossing the threshold.,
I claim a seat by the aisle.
[Please stand clear! Doors are closing]
With eyes half shut I scan the crowd:
uniformed workers wearing ID's,
a toddler’s arms and legs
dangling off his mother's lap,
An elderly couple talking softly.
The soft clatter of wheels
and the gentle side-to-side sway
rocks us like a cradle -
memories of the long day
melting into thoughts of home.
[Fairview Heights Station.
Doors open to my right]
The lady with the toddler steps off.
A trio of teenage girls
fresh from the mall
seek and find empty seats -
filling the rear of the car
with the music of their chatter.
Streetlamps scatter shadows
over parking lots.
The unseen country side
slips by under cover of darkness.
Headlights gleam like jewels
waiting for crossing gates to lift
[Next stop Belleville Station
Doors open to my left]
I clutch my lap top,
work my way to the door
and wait for the train’s full stop
Stepping out into the frost filled air
I pause to watch the sleak white chariot
vanish on the eastern horizon.
September, 2006
Nov 13, 2015
Nov 13, 2015 at 6:29 AM UTC
Stepping out of the February cold, Janie removes her wool scarf as the bus door closes behind her.
Route E-2, Westbound.
She shuffles down the bus toward her usual seat; second from the back, left side. The driver starts the bus and from her seat Janie can hear him singing along to “Summertime” by Janis Joplin. The bus is always empty this late and if there ever is anyone else aboard it’s better not to converse. Safer that way.
The brown pleather seat in front of her is peeling towards the top. Janie leans forward and idly picks at the scab-like dangles of brown as she watches out the foggy window. She idly picks and peels until she feels her hands wetted, cold. Looking down, they are covered in blood and mud.
“What. The. Actual. Fuck.” She whispers, wiping her hands on her scarf. She continues to peel back the leather and a trickle of deep red begins to run from the seat back, clumps of mud slowly falling too. Then, she sees the white of a bone. The bus turns right.
Oct 19, 2012
Oct 19, 2012 at 5:05 PM UTC
I caught a Union Pacific headed westbound
howling at the moon
A blanket of stars and my guitar
that's when I wrote this tune
That "Midnight Express" will get you there
if ya haven't a worry, or reason to care
Headin' down the line, steady as she goes
it's like heavy metal rock and roll
------------------------------------------------
Rode it up an' down to Sacramento
when a railway man said, " Ya gotta go."
I heated up iron 'til the trail went cold
riding heavy metal rock and roll
Heavy metal, rock and roll
it shakes and it quakes , rattles my soul
I wasn't born on a train
but that's how I'll go
thanks to heavy metal's
rock and roll
--------------------------------------------------
Now every time I hear a whistle blow
I think of "catchin' out" and wonder where it's goin'
Well, I may sing like some "country folks"
but, I love heavy metal & rock and roll
Nov 3, 2014
Nov 3, 2014 at 7:44 PM UTC
i spent seven days in a foxhole
eating sand and burying the secrets
of former lovers.
i gave myself the silent treatment
for the first four days
then i sang for the other three.
i dreamed of cowboys and westbound trains
and i had an old sack full of bottles
so i wasnt alone.
i was a fine toothed comb
or a skill saw
and i felt useful for once in my life.
i crushed a box of lightbulbs on
the fourth night
and i found the prettiest place to sleep.
i hung photos on the wall of the prison
to keep me happy
and missing you.
now i live in the basement of the world
and i wish for nothing more
than a swiss army knife and
one word from you.
Mar 23, 2012
Mar 23, 2012 at 9:47 PM UTC
Peered through the ideal imagery
of petty dream-spun avenues.
Brushed the quiet tides that rose
in fluid blends of milky down.
The clamour of the Westbound flocks
that scarred the last in pulsing chevrons
told of lands beyond the lay
of harlequin recline.
The lilac swathes that bled to blue
then proffered airs a saintly glow
cooled in easy idiom, the rapid
pyroclastic flow of dry diurnal doubt.
Aromatic night descended,
petals closed on avenues
to the path, the stars attended
cold eternal retinue.
Far ushers of the dew gilt foot
in concert with the silver seethe,
the mist in supple opulence,
an ***** to breathe.
Jul 16, 2016
Jul 16, 2016 at 5:40 PM UTC
In these strange lands I deposit my sleep
into a small percentage of the neat twenty-four boxes in which I can make a memory.
The clock runs 24 instead of two swings of 12.
I wish it could all be black and white
not Greenscale.
In the movement of the long white snake through the ocean of soft hills,
they glide up and down like a bloated wave in the See.
I stare blankly in disbelief at the rows of wise buildings.
As if they are unreal, like a theme park.
Rivers quietly saw through the hard earth
knowledgeable trees gather at her banks.
Vast and soft.
Green clouds of leaves.
And the airplanes slice through the heavens
leaving a trail of white blood.
Raging with accents of gold from the sun.
As she makes her journey to you, westbound, southbound, homebound.
Her last fingers of light drizzling inside me like golden syrup to sweeten the foul, rotten darkness that feasts on my starved love.
But I shall find sweet redemption, in these strange Femdlände of my blood.
Apr 29, 2015
Apr 29, 2015 at 2:38 AM UTC
It was bothering him the noise that came at night from outhouse
He didn’t give it much notice in the barn was a lot of mouse
Just wondered why in the day he would hear none of the sound
But it all started with him on the bed and the lunar path westbound.
As the grandfather clock chimed past twelve he kept counting the gong
It was about time to ***** up his ears the music would soon play along
The glass windowpane brought him the sky with stars all over firmament
Shaken out of wits he would tell himself it couldn’t be done by rodent.
Night after night it went on happening he couldn’t wish away with a laugh
It reached him one night to his patience’s end he said enough is enough
With his gun and torch he left the bed the truth for once he must learn
Who played the music regular midnight was somebody there in the barn?
He made his way through the shrub laden path under a half-lit moon
To find what it was that robbed his peace the source of the pestering croon
The outhouse loomed eerily in semidarkness a magic of night’s artistry
The man wondered what was hidden within what piece of baffling mystery.
Just as his shadow fell on the door floating in the crescent moon
The wind hushed off descended a lull stopped abruptly the tune
Nerves frayed in the nightly trudge his brows furrowed in doubt
He shrugged it off unlocked the door the fact must be found out.
A yawning black swallowed him with the smell of years’ dust
It took a while to see past it for his strained eyes to adjust
Then he remembered the torch in his hand his only aid for light
He pressed it on in the beamed circle caught the piano’s sight.
*Lying un-strummed for ages the piano had stood the time’s test
Playing host to its squeaking mates turning itself to their nest
They gaily treaded on the undead keys the notes were sheer fun
Their plot was uncovered on that night without the use of a gun.*
Oct 22, 2013
Oct 22, 2013 at 7:59 AM UTC
before the wall
came down,
there were lines
12 hours long
for bread and kielbasa;
and nuclear warheads raced
rhetoric east to west,
and back,
and rhetoric won...
I sat on a train
westbound,
idling on the left side
of the border
the 'gestapos' stormed aboard
with their black leather boots
knee-high;
stern angled faces
missing smiles;
eyes of winter
and steel,
unblinking....blue,
sending chills through
and through
'you,' he said
pointing at me
his open fist
flipping the universal
'come here' signal...
60 minutes later
he conceded...
reluctantly...
the 15-year old
black face smiling
in the mug shot
on my passport
was indeed....me
not some ****** student
trying to flee
the misery
behind those curtains
to freedom...
without walls 12-feet high
topped by razor-edged rolls
of barbed wire;
without food lines
12-hours long;
where choice
and opportunity
know no bounds...
~ P (Pablo)
(8/7/2013)
Aug 7, 2013
Aug 7, 2013 at 12:44 PM UTC
Dave,
My husband and I were traveling from Louisiana to Dallas, TX. Saturday. on Interstate 20 westbound. We passed a convoy of military vehicles on the Interstate headed towards Dallas. Also, in an area in which traffic had come to almost a complete stop because of road construction, over to the south of I-20, my husband and I spotted 3 white helicopters hovering in a triangular formation over an open field for over 10 minutes. Traffic was barely moving for a long time and the helicopters never moved, just hovered. Also, someone on Facebook traveling on I-20 in Louisiana today posted a video of UN ambulances being transported in which the UN logo had been taped over on all the vehicles but, on one door the covering had blown loose and you could clearly see the UN logo. I am praying for the people of Texas and Louisiana to wake up to what is going on especially with these false flag events like prisoner escapee and house to house searches in Texas to gather data about what is in the homes more than likely. Texas is under attack and now, ironically, the tropical storm system in the Gulf which was originally predicted to head our way in Louisiana at the gulf, has turned and is now going straight through the heart of Texas where they have already had major flooding going on. Please pray for our nation!!
Ronelle Ford
Shreveport/Bossier Louisiana
Jun 17, 2015
Jun 17, 2015 at 11:39 AM UTC
ears still ringin'.
cut across from saint lau with a coupla burgers,
walk down peel, misty and damp, to a bus stop.
once home find hair smells like mcdonald’s & clouds & remember
that conversation i just had about the increasing
amount of wayward young adults..
with the driver of the 360 westbound.
---too cold for the balcony so i'll
probably just couch it & sizzle a nice bowl & wish
i had a little bit more to write tonight.
Mar 27, 2011
Mar 27, 2011 at 1:05 PM UTC
Anchormen every morning
Famed KC's three-sided hub.
Traffic northbound,
Southbound,
Eastbound,
Westbound.
Honks and blinkers all resound
In one ear and out the other,
Distant memories of highways
I'd never traveled nor cared about.
Now you've brought them meaning
I've passed over every road
Racing to you
Then cruising and dreading visits' endings.
May 17, 2015
May 17, 2015 at 10:49 PM UTC
Part One: (The Part With No Rhyme)
Do you remember
when I was to be expelled?
A life ruined (or so I thought)
because of my facade of stupidity,
of delinquency.
And do you remember,
after the weekly screaming and biting?
Which met with more biting, and more screaming,
and crying
And how my only solace for discomfort and failure,
were the stolen pills-
the ones with the moon imprint-
that made the heaviness of the impending crash,
weightless.
Part 2: (The Part With Rhyme)
Westbound, California bound.
Turned around, though-
to their little-big town.
Unkept and festering, with rats
Not quiet, nor sound.
Oh, how I hate this town,
and how, everything must be either white or brown-
and how, the only thing in common-
metals and jewels, robbed from their crowns.
Jan 1, 2019
Jan 1, 2019 at 10:06 PM UTC
A westbound fog steadily showing its face,
as the sun hides its own.
On a bus bound for somewhere far from here,
an unknown destination far away from home.
Through every savanna, through every green field,
through every soggy
marshland with mud sticking to the heels.
It seems that everywhere I go,
whether it be high or low, far or near
time never seems to slow
and she’s never really here.
With every shrinking cigarette,
each separate dying ember,
with each slow wilting flower,
with each breath, I surrender.
Thoughts of the living traded in for the dead.
“Vanitas” or such, I believe men once said.
Mar 23, 2021
Mar 23, 2021 at 3:25 PM UTC
Westbound is where my heart has always been.
Every time I turn around I always go back again.
Senses are renewed and my spirit brings forth.
Telling me to head west and the notice is short.
Before I get moving there is something I have to say.
Over and over again you always take my breath away.
Under the canyons and over the hills of my heart.
Now I know what I really need and that is a start.
Deliver me on a westbound train and ignite the spark.
The spark that was always in me waiting to be unfurled.
Red hues of a western sky take me to a different world.
Always looking before I jump not knowing where I go.
I made the right choice and this I do surely know.
Now I go westbound and into a new tomorrow.
Jun 12, 2016
Jun 12, 2016 at 1:20 PM UTC