loneliest thing
around
my dogs are howling
a train is passing
just a block away
spur line down to Nogales
switch over at border
link here w/main line
slows to a crawl
warehouse district
horn blasting
dogs pick it up
sing in chorus
pass it up & down
the neighborhood
old blues singers
had a thing for trains
a way out
jobs & relative freedom
LA, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, New York
to someone in prison
train going somewhere
when you are not
loneliest thing around
this train doesn't
carry passengers
at least not officially
cement, sulfuric acid
to Sonora
Ford trucks from Hermosilla
circuit boards from Maquilladoras
border factories
unofficial passengers
leap out at this slow turn
melt into the alleyways
of South Tucson
to me these trains
don't invoke romance
escape or distant places
loneliness though
a sense of fate
of slow unstoppable force
moving deliberately
from no place to nowhere else
not a journey
but a warning
to not get in it's way
my dogs call it
on
sound fading
distant squeal
of solid steel wheels
flag
on the berm of I-10
heading north from Tucson
to Phoenix
a flag
broken off a whip antennae
top of pickup harsh desert wind
tattered cheap Chinese material
barely a month of use
run over by semis
wrapped around like a package
could contain a dead rodent
or a severed human ear
proud to junk so quickly
change
time is a bullet
ripping through the fabric of our senses
town of Eloy a rotted husk
Phoenix spreads into the desert
& cotton fields beyond South Mountain
like vomit on a rug
FAB plants
super malls
gourmet groceries
pushing up against the slums of Chandler
I think of that flag
are events speeding up?
or is it just me?
marked by age
who has only begun
to notice
is caught frozen
in mid stride ... his hair a bright halo, a languishing sunset ... mountain
of tailings, Ray Mine, glowing, streaked red blue, green. The sun fades.
Ed's foot rises falls ... he is transversing a Circle K parking lot.
His town, Hayden, Arizona is fading into nightfall, into ruin ... foot
meets the pavement, other starts to rise ... at 15 Ed realizes he is
going nowhere, will go nowhere - High School - a life in the mines -
a strike & vacation every three years - an injury - another - early
retirement - obscurity. Maybe he'll make sheet metal coyotes or Kokopelis
in a small garage workshop. Maybe sell them at a kiosk in a mall in
Tempe, watch Hayden stir the dust till he's dust - a graveyard now bigger
than the town ... a graveyard at the foot of that mountain of tailings.
This is his life. He knows it. Then an insight - if he slows down, seriously
slows down life will 'seem' that much faster, the long boring interludes
will seem to fly by. It's emptiness, the long march to that dusty graveyard
a brief burst bookended by eons of nothingness. So he did, he seriously
slows down - every year of his becomes five, becomes ten. People no
longer have time to listen, they hurry on by. His first & last girlfriend
fell asleep before the first stroke. People look laugh pass on ... to
Ed they are just flickers, fast shadows ... white days ... smelter pouring
smoke ... ten story trucks hauling mountains ... tailings rise, then
copper fails - fiber optics - new economies - a bad strike - whiff of
tear gas - town collapses like a circus tent. Signs break, shatter leaving
metal framework, rust, faint impressions of quaint prices - also events,
crises, battles, crusades yellow ribbons & flags - red white &
blue infloresences, flowerings - fade then bloom in sudden patriotic
spring. Hayden almost a ghost now - a few retirees, artists looking
for cheap housing & Slo Ed, his face ... his empty eyes hidden by
darkness. The Circle K closed last year. Ed has almost crossed this
barren lot has almost made it home ...
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computer enhanced photography
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Bill Beaver
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Bill Beaver lives in Tucson, AZ w/two dogs amid the ruins of a 100 year-old house. His biggest ambition in life is NOT to become a bag lady. |
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