he supposedly quit the shirt and tie brigade
for his dream job as a train engineer
to climb in the saddle of the iron horse
working for Chessie Systems or Santa Fe
or I don’t even know what train companies
are even around anymore (Grand Trunk, Grand Funk,
Burlington Northern???) I think now
they’re all a mishmash of former identities
a corporate goulash of ghosts —
there aren’t many trains running anymore
at least where I live
I say I live cause it doesn’t feel like home
it’s just a place to lay my head down each night
a soft pillow in a hard world
last freight train I saw had some generic name on it I didn’t recognize
it was pulling some tanker cars
and they were like good chinese communists
back in the fifties — all dressed alike
in dark gray uniforms with nothing much
to distinguish them from each other
don’t know if he became an engineer or not
we didn’t keep in touch but I wish we would have
he was one of the few sane people
in that asylum
good old workplace/chew ‘em up meat grinder
maybe it was just a pipe dream
hatched out of some hashish
but I like to think he’s riding the rails now
happy as a bug in a rug
across amber plains and sea to shining sea
