November As National Poetry Month

Prison Escape with References to Dances With Wolves

The assistant warden
is a HUGE Kevin Costner fan,
and the warden’s son
participates in the universal theater
of young men in concert
with Tonka trucks.

The warden wonders
where #801116 went,
and soon the news
of the jailbreak
has shot through
the little local population.

The warden’s wife, who thinks
she’s been done so much wrong,
looks out from her kitchen window
into the wide Indian woods,
and mutters to herself: “run
you little fucker, run,”


*


Who Wrecked this Train?

Back then, one of us
was a sleek, shiny train,
and another was a bright
blue smiling train,
unassailable as he tracked
his way around.

The sun reflected off
all of us trains;
it was bright back then,
when our lives were filled
with so much university
and beer.

Bright trains, never
tired trains, and trains
wearing big brown sunglasses,
we were all linked up
with big metal joints that clanged
when we rammed into one another.

No one could say when
certain trains wrecked,
and no one worried
about it much anyway --
we were trains; we were
made of steel.

Now we know:
no train wrecks itself;
there’s nothing a train
likes more than its track;
and as the train rolls
through the forest,
the trees ask
“oh, what have we done?”

But inside the clickety-est
“trouble trains” is always
a quiet, clear voice from
a bright-eyed conductor:
remain calm, remain
calm, remain calm.