Trains Make Good Walls ~ A Dream / January 2019
💔LEJ's Louisiana,
Yours Truly in a Swamp
a monthly e-column by Leonard Earl Johnson,
January 2019
Trains Make Good Walls
~ A Dream ~
~ A Dream ~
BY Leonard Earl Johnson
© 2019, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved
🔻 ⏬ 🔻
In my seat alone, dozing the last hour before reaching Lafayette, I dreamt of photographers raising their cameras.
Art directors composed men shouldering large silver and gold
sledgehammers. Arranging them before my mind's lens, as 'Gandy Dancers' ~ those gangs of mostly black men, who, with muscle alone wiggled and danced heavy iron rails into an alignment that joined the nation by its proud new railroad line ~ linking West Coast gold to East Coast greed.
Art directors composed men shouldering large silver and gold
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| Gandy Dancers |
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| Illinois Central Depot, Ullin Illinois, circa 1850 Southbound to New Orleans and The Sea |
"Why not!" the Trumper tweeted.
"Why not a wall of many railroads stretching from California to Florida. Multiple lines strung with multiple trains running thick as jungle bamboo and Vietnam lies?"
The President offered to show his bone spur to reporters. They turned away. "See, fake news!" he twitted. "If Elizabeth Warren showed her tomahawk, press rats would be on that like editors on cheese.
"But my war wound? Nothing!"
The Wall-trains would follow the route of America's first coast-to-coast train, ole Number One, the first train in the World to carry a personified name, the Sunset Limited. It's route following that of the colonial Old Spanish Trail.
The Trumper twittered: "Move over, Mexico. Hello, California, here we come!"
"Lets see them beaners get across that!"
he twittered, as Ivanka brushed his hair. And Son-In-Law, Jared Kushner unspooled.
he twittered, as Ivanka brushed his hair. And Son-In-Law, Jared Kushner unspooled.
Kushner was unspooling, direct communication lines to the Kremlin, behind the back of his genetically pure, self-esteemed, supremely self-proclaimed patriotic Family.
"A super legal backchannel communication cable," Stephen Miller explained to the new U.S. Attorney General and Trump Family Consiglire.
Behind them a righteous chores of Evangelical Preachers sang, "Heaven's Just a Sin Away! / Oh Whoa, just a sin away / I can't wait another day / I think I'm giving in ..."
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The little Family tableau rode in a manner befitting American nostalgia. Rode along gold plated escalators, and moving-sidewalks, now running from the White House up The Mall to the big domed Capitol itself.
"Streets paved with gold,"
the immigrants were told.
"For the goal of smaller decentralized government," Smiley Mitch laughed, slapping the new A.G./T.F.C. across his ample back.
The two chortled, "After we're dead who cares what flood," then they swept, giggled and farted off down the gold-plated road.
Kushner's 'backchannel cable' spooled on, then off again ~ fully out of any one's oversight.
A mustachioed face claiming National Security portfolio to the President of the United States, opened an electric notebook. A Google map glowed into focus. It showed Roseate Spoonbill migration routes.
"With almost no difficulty with blow back," the mustache twitched as it talked.
"We can lace migratory feeding sites with chemical-castration drugs that will threaten a perfect final solution to their endangered members!"
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| Clock Tower bus-bays, Rosa Parks Transportation Centre Lafayette, Louisiana |
"What this will do," he told the President, leaning in very close to his ear, "is convince the last doubters that America means business.
"Mad business, yes, but business!"
"Mad business, yes, but business!"
"A plausible crazy threat wins the game!" Trumper twittered, "Just ask my bankers." Ivanka brushed and spoke not. The Son-in-law spooled and spoke not. The escalator escalated.
The dream clock struck Noon. We awoke as the real Conductor called out, "Lafayette, next stop."
L. A. Norma stretched her arms overhead, and stepped off the train and to the side ~ away from the traffic pouring out behind her. Lafayette is the train's only smoke-stop between New Orleans and Houston.
She lit a Camel Cigarette, and continued her conversation about walls, with a young couple bound for Tucson, Arizona.
"Take Hadrian's, China's, Berlin's. Walls have not long kept anything out. Not ideas, not people, not things!"
The young man from Tucson nodded, "Just a political football."
"Sometimes with headline interference," Norma said.
His Wife added, "A distraction." She flicked cigarette ashes to the grass, and smiled. In its moment, that falling cigarette ash burned brightly ~ though it be in descent ~ then went dark landing atop a purple clover.
The young man from Tucson nodded, "Just a political football."
"Sometimes with headline interference," Norma said.
His Wife added, "A distraction." She flicked cigarette ashes to the grass, and smiled. In its moment, that falling cigarette ash burned brightly ~ though it be in descent ~ then went dark landing atop a purple clover.
The engineer blew his whistle calling smokers back aboard their smoke-free train ride to the Golden West.
"Manifest Destiny all over again," Norma said, from inside her toxic plum of Camel Cigarette smoke.
The train snaked off down the tracks. Its last car rocked and wobbled back at us. The automobiles drove away ~ each trailing a lingering chemical bouquet.
"Manifest Destiny all over again," Norma said, from inside her toxic plum of Camel Cigarette smoke.
A mushrooming cloud of fumes embraced all the World. We parted from our new friends shouting, "Red-herrings," and waved our arms.
Automobiles waiting at the crossing gates revved their engines to show their toxic commitment.
Automobiles waiting at the crossing gates revved their engines to show their toxic commitment.
The train snaked off down the tracks. Its last car rocked and wobbled back at us. The automobiles drove away ~ each trailing a lingering chemical bouquet.
Five elderly women standing on the platform scowled in our direction. They each wore a big red church-lady hat, red sweaters, red dresses, and red gloves. They each lifted red-hemmed skirts showing red soled shoes, and choo-choo-ed it into the depot, with its comfortingly stable toilets.
~ LEJ.org
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~ Comments ~
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Lagniappe du jour
Gandy Dancers / You Tube
💜 💚 💛
Heaven's Just A Sin Away
by The Kindalls / You Tube
(suggested Republican campaign song)
💜 💚 💛
This Land is Your Land
You Tube
written by Woody Guthrie
Sung by Pete Seeger and the multitudes,
including Seeger's Grandson, Bruce Springsteen, Barack Obama, and more
ON THE MALL AT THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL
in Washington, District of Columbia
United States of America
💜 💚 💛
Christmas Day 2018 / Lafayette, Louisiana
Left to right: Nashville, Tennessee Architect, Will Rosenthal
Left to right: Nashville, Tennessee Architect, Will Rosenthal
Papa Noel, Leonard Earl Johnson
Poet and Professor, Andrei Codrescu
Poet, Muse, and Mother, Laura Codrescu
© 2019, Leonard Earl Johnson, Poet and Professor, Andrei Codrescu
Poet, Muse, and Mother, Laura Codrescu
All Rights Reserved.
💜 💚 💛
💜 💚 💛
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| Photo credit: Scott Billington 💜 💚 💛 |
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| Photo credit: Mark Konikoff |
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| Krew of Rio, Lafayette |
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Next Month's column will be about Carnival!
2019 has a very long Carnival Season.
Beginning on Epiphany night, January 6
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| Krewe du Vieux, New Orleans |
LEJ's Louisiana, Yours Truly in a Swamp
is a monthly e-column @ www.LEJ.org
~ Hosted on GOOGLE Blogger ~and periodically at
Les Amis de Marigny, New Orleans,
publication of the
The monthly column is written by Leonard Earl Johnson
of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana
© 2019, Leonard Earl Johnson,
All Rights Reserved.
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posted by LEJ's Louisiana | 4:24 AM
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