Eshtine

quote of the day

by the way--you have to read this out loud.

Crossing

STOP LOOK LISTEN
as gate stripes swing down
count the cars hauling distance
upgrade through town:
warning whistle, bellclang,
engine eating steam
engineer waving
a fast freight dream:
B&M boxcar
boxcar again,
Frisco gondola
eight-nine-ten
Erie and Wabash,
Seabord, U.P.,
Pennsy tankcar,
twenty-two,three,
Phoebe Snow,B&O,
thirty-four,five,
Santa Fe cattle
shipped alive
red cars yellow cars,
orange cars, black,
Youngstown steel
down to Mobile
on Rock Island track,
fifty-nine,sixty,
hoppers of coke,
Anaconda copper,
hotbox smoke,
eighty-eight,
red-ball freight,
Rio Grande,
Nickel Plate,
Hiawatha,
Lackawanna,
rolling fast
and loose,
ninety-seven,
coal car,
boxcar,
caboose!

--Philip Booth