Coltrane’s Freight Train

Over the sixth grade PA system they announce, right after lunch, they shot the president.  Then Ruby shoots Oswald on live television.  This sours little Sammy good and plenty.

Before that, Cuban missiles aiming at children.  Annihilation seems a difficult concept for Sammy.           

                 this is Coltrane's freight-train… 

Bobby lying in a black puddle on that concrete floor asks if everyone is all right.  Sammy starts to wonder, “I’m just trying to keep my side of the street clean.”

Martin and Malcolm.  Then real made-in-the-USA bullets kill real made-in-the-USA students in Ohio.  No words, Samuel.

…no going back and no getting off.      no words.

Sam speeds away from rice paddies in a sixty-seven Chevy, leaving his best friend MIA.

High    hard                energy                         speeding toward that dangerous wreck…

Soak in propaganda from the last good war and the endless stream of those who massacre and rape and torture other human beings.  Those who fund atrocities and those who make us look the other way, Sam.

…the one ‘Trane told me about.

Slick ones, profiteers and strap-on airplanes.  Intractable cruelty.  Sam shouts at traffic from an overpass through his hat.

it’s an all-night underwater swim

Kamikaze shrapnel long hidden in a dresser drawer is cool to big Sammy’s touch. 

no air                     no        map                 no                    time 

We were sunk the moment the grassy knoll lit up with carbine fire, Sam.  We threw a parade, remember?

it’s a cold frame    /          a-train

Then we had to get through the eighties without Lennon.  Now Samuel has to live with himself for doing nothing about it…. 

straight to the abyss. 

…a steaming bowl of nothing.

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asheville - march 2011

(yashica T4, 35mm, 200asa)

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