Blue Trails: Riding Rod
©2013, Olan L. Smith
Blue hopes, dismal lives ride rod from blue ridges to western shores;
Bonneted wives left behind wonder if husbands
Bravely arrive, some fear while others never hear.
Birds return each year to nest but hopping cars has horrid risks; their heads
Bob up and down; one blunder and their body’s sliced, severed, disemboweled;
Bottles of whiskey soothe the throbbing of mile after mile of endless rail. What
Beguiled their wives? Is it expectations of riches remote? Unfortunate travelers
Battered bodies rest strewn along steel rails; the timely are smashed by shifting loads.
Beyond redemption’s trail lies a promised land where
Beer flows like liquid gold and sober men hunger for home.
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Blue Trails: Riding Rod
PoetryBlue Trails: Riding Rod was inspired by an obituary of a local man who was "beating his way to" a neighboring town in 1897. Coroners report said that he was suspected of riding rod on the train cars and lost his grip. "He leaves a wife and five ch...
