Tag Archives: travel
Richard Brautigan – 30 Cents, Two Transfers, Love
Tilt Shift Photography
Wanderings with Chris…. More Bluebells!
Larry Cohen – The Worst
The Worst from Larry Cohen on Vimeo.
boxcar funeral parlor
the prairie became an extension of the city
thanks to the railroad
so finding solitude was easy,
in the yard steaming hot
through haze cyclops diesels
rumbled threatening inert freight,
a man nimble over tracks
knew passage between the lines
many years spent here
living on the perimeter,
where boxcars became brittle and fell apart,
it was here he served god
and those others displaced,
god was an argument for cheap whiskey
and sorry nights,
the others came to him
as in his throat he had words and lyrics
written in his own hand,
his boxcar a place for the dead
those whose limbs had ceased in all exhaustion,
he spoke sermon gave a sense of rapture
then would take each body out
to that solitude for burial,
wind caught and burned faces
heaven a casual component,
the sky a vault
and mountain halls echoing nature,
love had evaded him for so long,
passion cast upon the train
making right for those about,
even in slumber he did not crave
the early life that was chest deep in darkness,
fellow man and a swirl of small favors
cleansed his sanity,
he labored as a persistent mouse
to save the dead from further disgrace,
and hoped his dust would find
the same
regions of desertion
ashfoot, ashfoot
under moonball capsules of starlight
take two tubes of the sea
and with hipster tone,
squeeze upon my subterranean pinnacle
handcuffed to a midnight train
brakeman with burning lantern
punched me to nothing more,
take two more boxes to burn
smoke and steam
play it cool
sinister strapped luggage fell
to which i became lashed
tunnel -bone condemnation
under white haired
fawns feet
voices from regions unknown
lifted me away
to churches with horns
and fed capsules of better things
hopping away the vision
pierced bone
i was no longer
the bum
with sorry leg
dada at dVerse poets an interesting cut up as i used Gregory Corso In the Tunnel Bone of Cambridge which is below
IN THE TUNNEL-BONE OF CAMBRIDGE
1
In spite of voices-
Cambridge and all its regions
Its horned churches with fawns’ feet
Its white-haired young
and ashfoot legions-
I decided to spend the night
But that hipster-tone of my vision agent
Decided to reconcile his sound with the sea leaving me flat
North of the Charles
So now I’m stuck here-—
a subterranean
lashed to a pinnacle
2
I don’t know the better things that people know
All I know is the deserter condemned me to black-
He said: Gregory, here’s two boxes of night one tube of moon
And twenty capsules of starlight, go an’ have a ball-
He left and the creep took all my Gerry Mulligan records with him
3
But he didn’t cut out right then
I saw him hopping
On Brattle street today-
he’s got a bum leg
on his way to the tunnel-bone
He made like he didn’t see me
He was trying to play it cool
4
Wild in the station-bone
Strapped in a luggage vision-bone
made sinister by old lessons of motion
The time-tablebone said: Black
Handcuffed to a minister
Released in a padded diesel
The brakeman punched my back: Destination, black
Out the window I could see my vision agent
hopping along the platform
swinging a burning-lantern-bone like mad
All aboard, he laughed, all aboard
Far into the tunnel-bone I put my ear to the ear
of the minister–and I could hear
the steel say to the steam
and the steam to the roar: a black ahead
A black ahead a black and nothing more.
padded diesel destination
legitimate was the legal nuance
given to his birth,
contested
shouted out
proven,
by twists of double helix,
it would be another day
to see the man
who out of ego made love
to most of the attractive women
he saw,
now there was a son
it could of been damaging,
he thought as walking through
station plaza,
he wanted it to be,
the mother
had mattered was a consequence
for all of seven months,
they had loved
with a deep assurance
that she considered to be a gesture
of forever,
he wanted to move on to the next,
now he wanted the boy and his mother,
they headed towards him
on the train
and waiting twenty minutes
was a pale shadow
of the twelve years,
he felt a sigh lengthen
and a brightness flare
carpetbagger venom
he was a splinter off a dollar bill
the rest broke up and devoured
by the man of the bank,
leaving as an innocent,
chevrolet voyaged south to el paso
under skies that had stars,
his waking
close to sunland park mall,
tight block of stores,
determined to prove her wrong
thrum of ac motel anthem,
dreams a sour bed of flowers,
as he strived for a spiritual arc,
life had a repetoire
of giving and deceiving
now he would turn the tide,
life’s quick dimensions
could not be measured accurately,
singing on the sidewalk
his prey everywhere,
smiling softly chewing gum
that had forgotten it’s spearmint taste,
his time was now
illustration 9
ants loud enough
close to his head,
reprieve of summer cool
as he lay under his cart
pushed for close to a mile
finding geography
awkward to place
despite being his city once,
his mind a squoze larvae
thoughts brief as a snakes hiss,
irritable tongue of weeds,
lying still
close to impossible,
underpass old concrete walls
tagged by youth
more used to shooting than talking
overhead cars heat and horses,
smells nasal reverberations
he would feel quieter
if at the bottom of a lake
where on it’s silted bed
with fishes as companions
devouring algae from his closed eyes,
heat would be gone
and his mind would make sense,
the moon did not bring night rain,
eventually he stood
rocking on heels
than began to walk
this time he would find the start
of his journey