TRAIN CHUGGING COAL MAMA

 

The jealous General Richards

Back alive from Patten Gorge

Knocked upon the door belated

Attending to the gal he did adore.

 

"I'm here!" he said

"I'm back!" he said

"Come," he said, "into this long embrace."

But his gal did disappear

With a steaming engineer

Who straightened all her curvitures

And had soot upon his face.

 

She Richard inhospitable

She Malcolm Michael in da sack

And she don't like Jed or Tom or Russell

Or the men that paint the freight cars black.

 

If the world's a living thing

Where's the grandeur in its gait?

Thus Blind Tony, wondering,

Went up to meet his fate.

"I'm here!" he said

"I'm back!" he said

"The autumn did not daunt me.

The seven fingers of the sun

Tap the sap and thumb the drum

With a rythm that does haunt me."

Unimpressed she got undressed

And drank a pint of bland hellos.

"But I'm free," said she, "of shackles,

Free of shanties by the shunting bin.

We're back on track to live in sin

Before the morning mellows."

 

Desperate strangers rode the last train East.

General Richard was among them with a gun.

His gal did disappear

With a steaming engineer

And what hurt him was - not least!

He had loved her since the day the war begun.

 

"If six inch guage was a bold invention"

He did think unto himself

"No train chugging coal mama

Can thwart my bold attention

When I say I'm back or else."

 

Blind Tony saw it coming.

He staggered through the snack car door.

"I'm here!" he said

"I'm back!" he said

And with a smile of strange elation

As they pulled into the station

Fell dead upon the floor.

 

She Richard inhospitable

She Malcolm Michael in da sack

And she don't like Jed or Tom or Russell

Or the men that paint the freight cars black.

 

- O. Spaniel Murray