A Train Poem

These words are for my mother

a continuous ramble

dedicated from the womb

to my eventuality

I would pull the plug to

watch us drown

     I would drop the bomb on

     our ashes, light the match

to wash us out

All my poems are one story

of my failure & my

     mother’s success

they are love unconditionally

and blind faith

I am humanity

& life & stupidity–

I have suffered ignorance

& regret

She has held me & lost me

mother, the earth,

the thought of home & the

     heart

read this like the lines

between the lines on my

aged face

I am untrustworthy

a liar out of cause

stack the boxes memory & thoughts

since the dirge we

sang of time

I wish for the innocence

you left in me

a boy already running

out of his ideas,

     words begin to die the

     moment we are born–

I’ve wasted every thought

every letter of the alphabet,

countless times, on myself

I am selfish

I wander without care

I will fade

I will find a way

I leave everything

I am for you

Everything

Sorry

Mom.

Notes to go west On

notes to go west on and the final history of tall tale bottom of the world:

johnny appleseed rode a dinosaur into battle

on the western plains

took on gasoline by the blacked out road signs

sinclair lines in the valley of sagebrush and wine

Chimney rock was the last left over piece of the

house that Paul Bunyan built

was a pillar of a mark for the tired pioneers

tracking across the acrid rattlesnake land

climb down the tobacco root hills and in an old

winnebago at the bottom you’ll find

ole Morris Clark and his dried beezbom tea leaves

just a mile off the hot pot trail montany

up the beaten path from Ross Lake comes the soft footprints

of the gentleman of the mount

hard white collared shirt slim packed and leaning on

his beaten stick he points north to desolation 

catch that cold iron rail

the chips of paint digging into your nail

the wretch of arm from bone and muscle

the grand terrible locomotion machine

the give-up of will and direction

a great heave into unknowing 

Sleeping under a bridge

Where are you

on this too big earth

waiting for me?

I’ll hit the miles

to carry you home

and rest you in our bed

we can just lie there

for as long as we like,

reading the lines on the ceiling,

I’ll hold you close

for the scent of your clothes

on my skin,

a breeze through the window

rattling picture frames

of the past, the low rumble outside

the screen, sounding far off,

eating away at our bones

locked in grinding halt,

water falls blueish brown

under my bridge, my aching bones,

your tired brown eyes

dragging me to sleep,

beautiful brown eyes I see

in waking dreams,

there’s a low stone wall

and white petals blowing silently

through your dark hair.

one thousand lives in passing 

Enough with the crosses

She was barely old enough to

drive, skip, take the exit ramp

before street lights, broken curbs,

parked cars, meter maids, bike chains,

trolley tracks, flat tires, toll booths,

cracked roads, face tattoos,  painted lines,

the story of the wide wide closed

up world comes calling taking

the babies and sinners for a

walk to the peak of jutting rocks

falling rolling rocks pyramid mankind

or the blue faced flowers that coat our graves

comes wandering wondering left behind,

what’s this all of a sudden

what’s changing so quickly

what’s gotten into her head and why do

we throw our trash up into the sky?

to burn

She’s got an answer but it’s on

the median strip, it’s unpopular,

it’s all over the pavement

curl–it’s all bloody and fucked up

and we were too young to tell.

5.

Collection of Boxcar Dreams ll

she placed a heart beside me

drawing the outline     where i fell

you know?–i don’t care

i don’t know     i wouldn’t know

where to go

                     i kept my tv in a bottle

floating out to sea     down the river out

of sight

              into some trout face haven

into some brackish gully     never

open

          waves high hang clouds

her eye     beside me     where i placed

those old dreams

                             little word worlds

a heart in the shape of candy     where

we ate as the sun stayed put–long tears

like lines of traffic in the night cut

the desired shape     into landscape

dams make way for lakes

                                          lost habitats

she played ragged lung behind me

breathing heavy endless colors

endless graffiti     a palette of heavy things

–i don’t understand     i can’t go wrong

i am not nearly as aware as i should have been

TC Pescatore, an itinerant punk & former hobo, has scratched out poems high in the mountains of the North Cascades, on California’s rocky coast and under pink desert skies over the Rio Grande, he might have left a few behind to mark his trail. He has published collections of poetry including This Oil-Puddle World (2024) & a novella, the Boxcar Bop! (2018). His graphic novel with locogonzales Junction Jones and the Corduroy Conspiracy is forthcoming from Markosia UK