The Daily Poem

SWEETHEART DREAMS 

Everybody’s going somewhere

Going there to get some love

Going there just got to get there

Got to feel that hand-in-glove

Going there to get some love.

Everybody’s riding railroads

Riding down to have some fun

Riding there with twitter payloads

Rolling through from dusk to dawn

Riding down to have some fun.

Everybody’s toasting something

Toasting hopeful sweetheart dreams

Toasting that bright wedding ring

Telling how such honey gleams

Toasting hopeful sweetheart dreams.

Everybody’s going somewhere

Going there to get some love

Going there just got to get there

Got to feel that hand-in-glove

Going there to get some love.

D. Edgar Lamp

The Daily Poem - 350

Verse Form

Longview, Texas

Lat: 32.50, Long: -94.74

JOURNAL: AmTrak in Sleeper

After we got back from The River Walk, Mimi climbed up on the top bunk in a dead sleep within minutes.  Lloyd and the other attendants were busy with the switcheroo between trains, talking loudly way into the night, but Mimi didn't stir one bit, but slept through it all.  I sat up by the dark window blogging until around 0200.  Woke to loud voices at 0630.  Lloyd handing off to the new guy Tony, whose brother has 13 kids scattered all over the country.  And even though nearly all his paycheck goes for alimony, he always seems to have cash on him, because he's an able gambler.  Our new train slipped it's way out of the knotted San Antonio network of rails, off into the South Texas countryside, heading north toward Chicago.

In Temple we met a lady sitting the garden-like setting of the train station. Her father had been the engineer of a narrow gauge railroad in town for many years. When he died, they poured his ashes into a Union Pacific oil can. All the family got together at the railway park and with his cremated remains took a one lap memorial ride. Turns out she was waiting at the station for her son who she hadn’t seen in three years. When he got off the train he gave her a big hug. He’s being deployed to Iraq—a bittersweet meeting to be sure.

We ate lunch with Gregory from France, who did his best to communicate with us in English, although his accent was as thick as chocolate mousse. He’s been traveling around the U.S. by train for a few weeks. He was on his way to Dallas for a 4-day foray through the city whose namesake TV show was really big in France. Evidently, Dallas is having a comeback show with Larry Hagman and several others. His smile revealed some serious tooth decay (he had trouble biting off pieces of his Tomato & Basil Pizza) making me wonder what healthcare must be like in France.

A black lady named Eva came over to where we were sitting in the observation car this afternoon and asked Mimi to help her with her cell phone, an early Droid. Seems her sister went to return the rental car in Fort Worth and when she got back, the train was just pulling out. Eva was onboard with both her and her sister’s luggage. Her sister had been chasing the train from Fort Worth to Dallas to Mineola to Longview. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t seem to catch up, so Eva got off the train in tears with about ten pieces of luggage to wait for her sister to catch up. I helped her get their luggage off the train. To make matters worse, Eva has to be back to work in Indianapolis the day after tomorrow.

Dinner with Trish and Samantha, mother and daughter. Trish’s T-shirt said “Eagle” and Samantha’s T-shirt said, “Beware of Doom” to go along with her pierced lip. It took them from salads & soda through steak and ribs to finally shed the tragedy of their trip so far, and start to see that things were looking up. Trish and Samantha had driven down to El Paso with her Trish’s sister to meet her husband who was coming home on furlough from Iraq. But shortly after they took their seats in coach, stopping for a smoke break, Trish lost her wallet with $400 in it. Suffering through for over 24 hours with no food, and flipping with futility from side to side trying to get comfortable in their 65-degree recliners, they were desperate. There was no Western Union available, so she called her husband, who called Amtrak, who called the engineer, who at last called her and agreed to let her husband pay the $103.00 online allowing the girls to get bed, showers, and a few hot meals before arriving back home in Oiltown, Pennsylvania. “Where we’re from, if someone finds a wallet with a person’s ID in it, they find the person and return it.” Said Trish. We wished them better luck and good night’s sleep and headed down the corridor to our overly hot room.

Tony, the new guy, is gregarious, which covers a multitude of laxity. Mimi tried her best to get him to change our rooms, but he said he couldn’t. He allowed us to sit in another berth to read until bedtime, when we will again be roasted into naked submission for the night.

After dinner we stopped briefly in Texarkana. I got out to stretch my legs and snap a couple nighttime photos. I was three cars down when the “All aboard!” was called, so I ducked into the nearest car and headed back toward our sleeper. I met Mimi coming up the other way looking nervous. She was afraid I’d been left behind.

In Little Rock, Arkansas I jumped out and jogged the length of the train back and forth. Off in the distance about a quarter mile away, the Capitol Dome shown like a sun-bleached conch through the midnight’s chill. A young family with a boy named Garrison, probably six, and a girl of nine or so, boarded the train and took the sleeping compartment next to ours. Tony is from Chicago and says it is going to be frigid up there. Trish & Samantha got out for a smoke looking clean-haired and happy. Trish stood by the fence texting someone, probably her husband, letting him know that everything is fine and she can’t wait to get home.

I’ve been reading Sandburg, and am enjoying him more. Poems like Mag, Cripple, A Fence, Mamie, Cumulatives, and Limited. Nice. I like how he often returns to the beginning theme of the poem like a refrain.

~ The Daily Poet