Robert Hill Long

Amtrakian Tolstoy

Midnight trains could be more
compelling if they blew more
than one flatted third chord
at any dangerous civic crossing

where the proverbial hobo wino
is apt to fumble shoelaces
and sever legs from torso.
Robinson cherishes the Purple Haze

voicing, and would howl it
pure were his hairless legs
detached: no chance of that.
He can imagine train horns

trained to utter blues changes,
one crossing to the next—
flat-third tonic, minor-ninth subdominant, dominant
seventh uttered like demonic revenge

wherever a drunk driver stalls,
maneuvering his black Ford Expedition
between oblivious flashing gates. Then
the ambulance siren could solo

like a frenetic modal saxophone.
Then American suicide achieves reason,
philosophical basis in accordance with
musical principles native as slavery.

Sick of corporate lies? Die
where So What encounters Giant
Stepsat Railroad and Jefferson.
Wannabe suicides line up: Why

didn't the government legislate this
earlier, they ask, before my
divorce, failed business, pedophilia conviction?
Musical-train suicide: worth a try.

Folks, Robinson's bored. Stranded. Eugene:
ex-milltown whose name means well-born.
(Its runner-up name was Charnelton,
aka town for housing bones.)

Insomniac in its stained-carpet Hilton,
close to the rails, he
can't help constructing addled plans
for his country's overdue depopulation

since his amplifier rumbles toward
his Portland gig though both
guitars remain luggage in Frisco.
Amtrak screwup = Robinson woe,

But since Amtrak routinely clusterfucks
expectations of every belated traveler
he's willing to generalize apocalypse:
should or shouldn't there be

one train-warning chord for when
bad government runs you over?
Robinson is, as usual, con.
At least let's have variety

in the massive music overriding
the steel wheels that sever
our delusions from our bodies.
Robinson, aren't you being severe?

Then why does he remember
the homeless train-station girl holding
her cardboard sign: Ninjas Killed
My Family—Need $$ For

Kung-fu Lessons. Feckless, insouciant,
she smiled as Robinson's taxi
swept past. Probably she won't
get flattened by a train

in Seattle or sleepy Eugene
but if fate forces her
to stoop, retie a boot,
bone-weary along the Coastliner's route

and she's trapped—homeless Karenina
in Amtrak's headlight—Robinson wishes
she may die to Coltrane,
not merely a coal train

honking Get off the tracks
of American industry or die.
Useless in bed he sighs,
tries kung-fu moves, laughs: if

she slept here, his snore—
a foghorn rhetorical as Tolstoy—
would chase her streetward again.
Robinson asleep? What a bore.

Robert Hill Long was raised in North Carolina. His books include The Power to Die, The Work of the Bow, The Effigies, The Kilim Dreaming, The Wire Garden. He has been awarded fellowships by the NEA and other state arts commissions. Over the past 35 years his work has appeared in DoubleTake, Hudson Review, Kenyon Review, Manoa, New England Review, Poetry, The Prose Poem, Virginia Quarterly Review, Zyzzyva and elsewhere. He lives in Oregon.

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