River / Railroad

Phillip Finch

RIVER / RAILROAD

“how the river held
still every midnight”
—William Stafford
Living On The Plains
THE DARKNESS AROUND
US IS DEEP
____________

Down here off Hwy 50—
Where my shack retreat
Sits by the Cottonwood

Thoughts come to me—
How both the river and
The railroad hold still
_________

There’s this slow curved—
Relation between the
Rails and the old river

One goes slow and the—
Other goes fast and here
I am between them both

LIVING BY THE RIVER

Sometimes both the—
River and railroad flow
Together eastward

The BNSF big diesels—
Moving clippity-clip fast
The river so very slowly
_________

Other times the trains—
Move west with their cars
Full of West Coast stuff

But the Cottonwood—
Never moves backwards
It’s always moving, moving

BOTH WORLDS

During these jaunts—
When I unwind & relax
Back there in Kansas

Sometimes at midnight—
I realize that I’ve got 
The best of both worlds
________

I can’t keep up with the—
Race of the rails or the
River down to the Gulf

I’m caught here—
At night trying to keep
Up with my dreams

BNSF West of Emporia in Snow

BNSF WEST OF EMPORIA IN SNOW

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjjhzuHnY34

“I’m an instinctive playwright,
and I don’t like to examine
my art too carefully”
—Edward Albee, Stretching My 
Mind: The Collected Essays
____________

One can feel the power—
The winter wind whipping in
The air as the trains go by

The loud clanging of the—
Road crossing and the steel
Rails roaring by me there
__________

COSCO, ALLIANCE, FED EX—
CLIPPER, MARTEN, HANJIN
YANG MING, CAPITAL, SENATOR

There’s something soothing—
About Trainwatching out here
West of Emporia where I live
________

BNSF 7294 West Stack—
Near Milepost 118 with the
Snow and cold wind today

Some might think—
Trainwatching is absurd but
I’m into Absurdist Theater

Winter Trainwatching

WINTER TRAINWATCHING 

What is it about Kansas—
During the wintertime when 
snow’s on the ground?

When the sun’s out—
And there’s a slow freight
Train rumbling the rails?
___________

When the elm trees—
Silhouette black skeleton
Fingers up into the sky?

And then you hear—
This mournful whistle of
A BNSF train going by?

BURROUGHS IN KANSAS

William Burroughs

BURROUGHS IN KANSAS

CONTENTS 
__________________

CATS
A MAJOR WRITER

COUNTRYSIDE LIVING
MYSTERIOUS SKIN

AMERICAN GOTHIC
GOING HOME AGAIN

THE FLY OVER STATE
ABSURDIST THEATER

KENYON HEIGHTS
THE BRECKINRIDGE HOTEL

RESTORATION
CHOPIN SONATA
_____________

CATS

Being cosmopolitan—
There in that YMCA
Locker-room condo

But as his lover knew—
NYC was no place for
A gracefully aging sage

Ensconced there in—
The countryside outside
The University of Kansas

So much tres better—
Living with all his cats
Burroughs retires gracefully

A MAJOR WRITER

What does it mean—
To be a major writer
In the moody Midwest?

Isolated from the—
Intelligentsia of both
East and West Coasts?

I look to Lawrence—
William Burroughs there
Retired from New York City

Shotgun splatter art—
Making thousands dollars
More than just with books

COUNTRYSIDE LIVING

Photos of Miss Burroughs—
Trundling down through
The Kansas countryside

Totting his shotgun—
Getting off on the privacy
That only Kansas can give

Then making a discovery—
Collage, pastiche and the
Cut-up method too literary

Then shameless fame—
And new literary reputation
Suddenly Shotgun Art

MYSTERIOUS SKIN

There is, of course—
The usual fantasies of
Writers like Scott Heim

“Mysterious Skin”—
Plus the rather dingy
Denouement of hustlers

But Miss Burroughs—
Had already been there
And done that, my dears

Kansas was different—
To him after his intense
Manhattan existence

AMERICAN GOTHIC

Not that I’m complaining—
Grant Wood simply said it all

It’s just the way it is—
Like why fight it, my dears

Like “Nighthawks” (1942)—
By cynical Edward Hopper

That’s how he saw Kansas—
As austere gothic snapshot

GOING HOME AGAIN

How stupid of me—
To even think I could
Ever go back home again

Doing that nostalgic—
“Look Homeward, Angel”
Kitschy literary trip

I've tried it that way—
The usual Narrative schmaltzy
Disappointing Reminiscences 

What makes a writer—
Any different than any obit?
Would somebody tell me?

THE FLY OVER STATE

Of course, there’s the usual—
Quixotic thing one does with
Oneself out there in the country

But all that is somewhat muted—
When compared with all those
Loud freight trains trundling by

That’s when Kansas takes back—
What it gave you back in your
Bildungsroman beginning

Not that there’s any sense—
Being born way down there in
Fly Over State anyway

ABSURDIST THEATER

Keep it short & quick—
Don’t dilly-dally with any
Meaningless meanderings

Let it sink down outta—
Bleak moody skies thru
Tragic twisting Elms

Why fight the loneliness—
Let your branched fingertips
Reach desperately into the sky 

Try to be sympathetic—
With the stark cold realism
Of the rolling sensless Plains

KENYON HEIGHTS

I was born in Newman’s—
Roberta Eckdall’s grandfather
Delivered me back then

On the other side of—
Twelfth Avenue there's
The new Kenyon Heights

That’s where Linda and—
My EHS friends want me
To retire in an apartment

I love Emporia very much—
But I crave the countryside
If I’ll ever get back home

THE BRECKINRIDGE HOTEL

The successful renovation—
Of the lovely Film Palace there
On Emporia’s Commercial Street

The Granada Theater designed—
By the stylish Ballinger Boys
Like the one in Kansas City

Lowther Junior High renovated—
And now the EHS becomes the
New Breckinridge Tourist Hotel

Surely Republican businessmen—
Will flock to Emporia for lucrative
Conventions in the near future?

RESTORATION

Of course, restoration and—
Preservation of Emporia’s past
Is always an ongoing battle

I lived with my divorced—
Mother across the street from
The magnificent Hood Mansion

The same with the church—
Where I was baptized that
Doomed First Christian Church

And the classic YMCA—
Where I fell in love with the
Young hoodlum Arnold Lopez

CHOPIN SONATA

I guess I’m nostalgic—
I can't help feeling that way
Ignore what you’re reading

Just talking with myself—
Thinking about that little
Athens of the Midwest

KSTC charming then—
Vernon Sheffield pianist
Knew how I felt about it

Playing soothing piano—
Sonatas in his apartment
There west of campus

Absurdist Kansas

ABSURDIST KANSAS

“mastering the past

and inventing the future"

—Edward Albee

What could be simply more—
Absurdist than the endless 
Prairie plains of Kansas?

What could be simply more—
Absurdist than the endless
Burlington-Santa Fe tracks?
_________

What could be simply more—
Absurdist than the endless
Golden Kansas wheatfields?

What could be simply more—
Absurdist than the endless
Meandering dirt country roads?
________

What could be simply more—
Absurdist than the endless
Gone Hwy 50 Drive-In sky?

What could be simply more—
Absurdist than the endless
Cottonwood & Neosho Rivers?
_________

What could be simply more—
Absurdist than the endless
Z-Bar Ranch acres & acres?

What could be simply more—
Absurdist than the endless
Topocosmic Sixth & Commercial?
_____________

What could be simply more—
Absurdist than the endless
Doodlebug Night of my Boyhood?

What could be simply more—
Absurdist than the endless
Freight train whistles at night?
_____________

What could be simply more—
Absurdist than the endless
Kansas historical landscape?

My own stupid & ignorant—
Human existence just a brief
Wink of an eye in time?

Trainwatching Lit

TRAINWATCHING LIT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjjhzuHnY34

“…as in theater, a play is a representation 
of an event, while a film is a representation 
of a representation… Nothing pejorative is 
intended here, of course: all art is artifice; 
it is this artifice, this metaphorical distancing 
which gives art its reality, its power.” 
—Edward Albee, Stretching My Mind: 
The Collected Essays
___________________

Movies bore me now—
The same with TV sitcoms
I’m more into Trainwatching

Out here west of Emporia—
The Naked Ape Human Factor
Seems to be more distant

The way the BNSF trains—
Wail away at the crossings
Seems more real to me

It gives reality its artform—
I’m bored to death anyway
So here I sit enjoying it

Kansas as Theater of the Absurd

KANSAS AS THEATER OF THE ABSURD

“What of this theater? Is it, as it
has been accused of being, obscure
sordid, destructive, antitheater, 
perverse, and absurd (in the sense
of foolish?”—Edward Albee, “Which
Theater Is The Absurd One?” 
______________

Kansas as Theater of the Absurd

Kansas as like Samuel Beckett’s “Krapp’s Last Tape,” Jean Genet’s “The Balcony” and Eugene Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros”
________________

The works of Beckett, Ionesco and Genet are no more absurd than my modern soap opera existence out here in the countryside west of Emporia

It’s this stark, lonely, spectral Kansas landscape out here west of town—that’s somehow comforting and reassuring to me now in my retirement years.
_______________

Like Burroughs up there in Lawrence, calm, cool and distant from frantic NYC, finding himself centered in a new way, a new artform, shotgun splatter art

Like Burroughs, here I am in this limestone old farmhouse, down from the BNSF tracks west of Emporia, Kansas where I grew up long ago

Santa Fe

SANTA FE

CONTENTS

DOWN BY THE TRACKS

LIFE IN THE COUNTRY

RFD DÉJÀ VU

BURLINGTON-SANTA FE 

DOODLEBUG AT NIGHT

DIVORCE 

MARRIAGE

ROOTS AND BRANCHES

TRAIN WATCHING

MIDWEST FILM NOIR

SNOWY EMPORIA 

_____________________

DOWN BY THE TRACKS

The elm trees down by the—

Burlington-Santa Fe tracks

During the spectral winter

The upper branches trying—

Desperately to reach the sun

Naked, leafless, stark, lonely

At least the elms back in—

Emporia still have the little

College town for company

But out here by the tracks—

& the meandering Cottonwood

What could be more alone?

LIFE IN THE COUNTRY

A part of me stayed behind—

Back there where I was born

In Emporia, Kansas

There must have been a—

Reason, maybe, maybe not

Why I was born back there

Not just because it was a—

Shotgun marriage between

Amy Jane and Marion

But perhaps a part of me—

Knew ahead of time that

This was my RFD home

RFD DÉJÀ VU

Not that I’m like—

Sylvia Plath all caught

Up in Arielesque

I’m more, well, like—

An instinctual poet who

Writes for the moment

Midwestern life for me—

Was surrealistic boyhood

Though now it’s tres noir

Burroughs in Lawrence—

Had the same idea, him

And his cats way out there

BURLINGTON-SANTA FE

Sometimes I just park by—

The side of a railroad crossing

Train-watching as they go by

All those powerful diesels—

Roaring by with their blaring

Loud horns warning everybody

Full of COSCO freight—

And tons of cargo containers

Rumbling to the West Coast

So very different than the—

Dainty little Doodlebug whistle

I heard at night at a kid

DOODLEBUG AT NIGHT

Walter and Jenny lived out—

There on Old Highway 50 all

The way thru the Depression

That’s where I spent my—

Summers growing up as a

Big-eyed naïve grandson

At night sleeping on the—

The cool porch with Jenny

One could hear the Doodlebug

South over the fields next—

To the Santa Fe tracks and

I can still hear the plaintive…

DIVORCE

Amy Jane got sick of the—

Military life when Marion was

Over there in the Korean War

Wars have a way of simply—

Destroying marriages and

Marriages don’t always last

She put me & brother on—

The Doodlebug to Belleville

Where Marion’s parents lived

She ditched us and there—

We were in the middle of

Winter not knowing why

MARRIAGE

They both got remarried—

But they weren’t any better

Than the first lousy ones

Me and my brothers—

Grew up on child support

And a hateful stepfather

The only good thing was—

Emporia took us under its

Wing and protected us

That little Kansas town—

Did the best it could

And Viola here I am

ROOTS AND BRANCHES

Like Robert Duncan—

I followed a lover away

From home to the coast

Seattle so very different—

Than my home back there

In the moody Midwest

But that moodiness stuck—

With me because it was

The way I grew up then

I wanted to live in the lonely—

RFD countryside again where

The Doodlebug called to me

TRAIN WATCHING

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RqEJ90e_eI

Train-watching out there—

By the country roads is

Like a film noir movie

There’s the dark power—

Of the big diesel engines

Roaring along the tracks

There’s the gongs and—

Whistle warnings at all

The railroad crossings

All of this going on with—

Only a few bystanders

Gawking, ogling like me

MIDWEST FILM NOIR

It’s like “Asphalt Jungle”—

That noir classic but reversed

Out there in the countryside

There’s no Marilyn Monroe—

Or Sterling Hayden or suave

But doomed Louis Calhern

There’s just the tres strange—

Quiet of the prairie night

That’s always been there

And then comes the nice—

Break in the moody noir

As a loud train comes by

SNOWY EMPORIA

http://www.emporiagazette.com/video_5e9df724-8042-11e2-baae-0019bb30f31a.html?mode=multimedia

Another film noir classic—

This nostalgic drive through

Snowy little Emporia, Kansas

Taking a drive through the—

Snow-covered streets giving

A totally new view of town

Just a leisurely tour with—

Some background music

What a magic carpet…

Am I the only one to—

Re-run the You Tube flick

Again and again and again?

At Dawning

AT DAWNING (I LOVE YOU) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8weNcLAG5U

Music and lyrics by Charles Wakefield Cadman

When the dawn flames in the sky I love you;
When the birdlings wake and cry, I love you;

When the swaying blades of corn
Whisper soft at breaking morn,

Love anew to me is born,
I love you, I love you.

Dawn and dew proclaim my dream, I love you;
Chant the birds one thrilling theme, I love you;

All the sounds of morning meet,
Break in yearning at your feet.

Come and answer, come, my sweet,
I love you, I love you.

Vernon Sheffield in Emporia

The Boy in the Bell Jar

I met Vernon one day—

In the old Science Building

Going up the staircase

It was my Ritual—

To view the Fetus Boy

In the display cabinet

There he was asleep—

In his Jar of Formaldehyde

But his eyes were open

Looking at me—

From outta History

For how many years?

I would stand there—

Trying to talk with him

Sharing my thoughts

Long before I read—

Sylvia Plath’s “Bell Jar”

The kid read my beads

Vernon Sheffield

Vernon’s office was—

On the same floor next

To the Boy in Jar

He noticed me—

Maybe felt sorry for me

Took me under his wing

He taught Music then—

Mathematics when the

Department changed

Music for him should—

Be taught only by men

He was tres Misogynist

Why I don’t know—

But he enjoyed young

Men very much instead

And so he ended up—

Teaching Mathematics

Instead there at KSTC

Emporia Evenings

We went for long walks—

In the long summer evenings

Emporia different back then

The Eisenhower Fifties—

So very calm and naïve

After the Second World War

My parents were divorced—

Vernon became my guide

My gay Fairy Godmother

I was like Judy Garland—

Stuck there in Kansas & he

Was Glenda my Good Witch

He lived west of campus—

In a small apartment with

A sleek black grand piano

He’d play Mozart for me—

Minuets and lovely ditties

He’d make up in his mind

Gothic Emporia

There’s nothing more—

Gothic than Emporia

During the winter

The tall stark Elms—

Brooding up & down

The dismal streets

My gothic house—

On Constitution was

Really no different

Inherited from my—

Gone grandparents

Now reclusive mine

The sleek art deco—

Senate Apartments

Now a Frat House

The big homes—

Once historic now

A ghetto slum

Sunken Garden

The Fountain—

Once a rendezvous

For illicit moments

Tennessee Williams—

Summer and Smoke

Lonely interludes

Young male students—

Lonely & far from home

Blowjobs in the bushes

During the summer—

A Garden of Eden for

Me down on my knees

During winter though—

Slim Pickings with stark

Plumb Hall looking grim

That’s when my mentor—

Vernon Sheffield played

Piano sonatas for me