Saturday, July 24, 2010

Union Pacific #6

Inverted white air white-blue snow con-
gealed on concrete the sense of swimming under
    an ice sheet at 6,000 feet
& where have those distinct moments
        gone to in space &

frozen fog & frozen wrought iron
gestures
            & black & white freight trains
on the plaza’s historical markers   
        those distinct snowdome moments

a store window window-shopping
    a scarlet cowboy shirt a wooden cross
pinned with a tin star en-
            circled with rusted barbed wire
    this is what I wanted to say when the sun came up

once upon a time when time was liquid &
chromatic in
    every direction
the canteloupe glow over I-79 in a June driving
east by northeast but it’s this
    March in Cheyenne in gray-white air
a row of skateboards & a Dark Side of the Moon
        t shirt & my reflection
    in plate glass framed by bricks in-
   
verted white air white-blue snow con-
gealed on concrete
    have I gone into time in a paradox a
    wooden cross pinned with a tin star
the Union Pacific depot
        graystone in frozen fog a galloping
horse statue hulking oxidized geometric
    & no yellow freight trains in sight


Jack Hayes
© 2010









[To see other poems in this sequence, please click on the "UP Poems" label]

8 comments:

  1. Raw, cold, metallic...and gorgeous.

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  2. Like a fruit tree burdened with too much fruit, it hid behind a glut of wonderful lines and phrases, but on a second reading opened up and was just wonderful.

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  3. a scarlet cowboy shirt a wooden cross..........
    Another Bravo!

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  4. Hi Willow, Dave & Tony

    Willow: Thanks!

    Dave: Glad it came together for you! Thanks for stopping by.

    Tony: Thanks! They were actually in a shop window.

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  5. he canteloupe glow over I-79
    Love this description, and I can see it so clearly.

    I like how things go from frozen, to a kind of soft liquid movement, to frozen again. A rusty metallic frozenness, something that's permanently chilly. Great choice of language throughout.

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  6. Hi HKatz: Thanks a lot--I do very much appreciate the things that you "get" in my poems. Yes, that was just about how the sun looked one morning a long time ago above Lake Erie.

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  7. I love the sense of movement in this. Great structure! I can't remember what you called this style. (?)

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  8. Hi Karen: Thanks! So glad you like it. I don't have a name for it--it's just something that's developing as I work on these poems (or poem).

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