WESTBOUND FREIGHT
This chapbook, Westbound Freight, is the second short collection of poems that I was fortunate to have the late Jennifer Bosveld publish at Pudding House out of Columbus, Ohio. The poems are linked as a journey through the Sierras and the central valley and mountain lands of rural California.
A thank you to Melissa Guillet https://peoplepill.com/people/melissa-guillet/ for providing the artwork for the cover. I had the pleasure and distinct priviledge of sharing the stage with Melissa as the two of us were invited to present a reading at the visitor's center at Walden Pond in Massachusetts, made famous of course by Henry David Thoreau. Melissa's reading that day was incredible, an experience I'll never forget. She's a fine poet and artist and teacher.
Here is a sample poem from the collection.
Milk Tower At Pixley
Plank-built tap
barrel-round like Granny’s washtub
this
communal breast
once inspired
market
veal of doodingus days,
speculators in cravats
swearing
passion
is the oasis
blueprints will save us
manifest destiny
drives
shadows.
Hinged
as
we are to the unseen
sing the fences
of a wooden need
bibles
that won’t fade
red
rail sutures, fables
in road dust fans.
Ashen
monks
these
almond tress
shade
a ranch house on wheels
steel
ladder of tower frozen mid-collapse
the
clogged spout this town has become
boxcar
coke fumes and pools of oil leakage
loner
with a red bandanna toughing it out
barley-fertile air.
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