(Please note: unedited haiku trove.
These begin in Massachusetts
and follow the previous post
Trans-Canada Haiku)
Pond on some farmland
Canada geese in big flocks
the snow line moves south
Horseneck
Sunny summer beach
in the blasts of December
puffin-like seabirds
Marsh house built on stilts
delicate board bridge to it
empty in winter
Snow falls on Swansea
photographic Fall River
fades into the past
The snow train plumes down
from hilly Providence
to white salt marshes
Sun comes out at last
restores color to the world
passed this way before
Bright clouds on the sea
New England outlined in snow
gull on a statue
Washington Square Park
1.
Checked my bag at Penn
kept my train slippers with me
a seat for this bench
2.
Thousands of pigeons
converge on my snowbound lunch
squirrels steal behind
3.
Yule tree in the arch
a cherry-picker trims it
park sparse in the cold
The snow and the tracks
brush-stroke clouds on the Hudson
a school of painting
As night takes the hills
on the sky-colored Hudson
a few hundred ducks
Horizon aglow
in azure the evening star
crossing the river
First Christmas lights
a home alone in the woods
by the vast unknown
The river of night
battalions of streetlights
give way to darkness
The train uncovers
an island with castle ruins
in the last gloaming
Island of strung bulbs
delineates a structure
but no structure there
Industrial ship
factory of babylon
chemical structures
From the railroad bridge
ghostly Albany in mist
the moon turned orange
Distant Christmas trees
the spirit is on the land
train passing at night
In white-out snowfields
tall tower with blinking white light
a Christmas gazebo
Erie Pennsylvania
Snow sweeps away all
at the silent train station
a plow’s constant prowl
In windswept snowfields
snow and crop stubble turn pink
red sun in the woods
Defunct trains obtain
in sunny snowy Elkhart
some contradiction
Fire on the outskirts
of a blanched-out dairy farm
no one is around
It all intersects
mirror buildings in the Loop
frigid and lucid
Naperville
Fifty geese shelter
a sunny alcove windless
the marble golf course
Three gothic steeples
sign of the cross and a prayer
waning winter sun
Perfect neat farmhouse
spreading trees and a red barn
grain elevator
Snow fields are a sea
vast American pampas
railroad tracks to Venus
On the river Platte
factory in snow and steam
artificial star
Distant paisley cloud
the pink and blue empty sky
a moonscape with grass
The phantom Rockies
horizontal line of clouds
made of rocks and snow
Entering Denver
geese stand in a river bend
brilliant snow blows past
The winter Rockies
cow skull of the sleep-deprived
reverse train travel
Sudden mule-deer herd
unfazed by the passing train
gateway to the sky
Series of tunnels
the vertiginous daylight
flashing on and off
A frozen river
between the peaks and the train
is made of milk glass
Before the splendor
animal tracks to water
a constant struggle
Snow-laden fir trees
in the twilight between peaks
occluded river
Phone poles overhead
make this a way of the cross
a deer stag looms up
Wire fence in the snow
suggests a wild mountain tune
some furry ponies
One hour motionless
then the train travels backwards
the cold cracked the tracks
White peaks of Utah
turn roseate in a sunrise
we haven’t seen yet
Utah seems old, ancient
even the man-made part
even the trees
So here before the
purple mountains majesty
a dismal junkyard
Utah shows its backside
Salt Lake City bizarre
yet unremarkable
A small plane landing
summoned over the wasteland
a bulbous tower
Saltair
1.
Mystical mountains
a carnival of souls
the endless salt lake
2.
An ornate ruin
on the frozen salt expanse
sudden art brut rock
3.
Before the emptiness
the victorian ice palace
suggests infinite
Nevada
Nuclear test site
sun-burnt skeletal buildings
functional chapel
If these aren’t badlands
then I don’t know what would be
a blackbird's grace
In a narrow pass
anthropomorphic rock face
observes Mount Shasta
The ducks move sideways
in the rapid rail-side stream
the hills get furry
Two rock formations
one is black the other white
shaped like human skulls
Ghost mountain haunts me
keeps looking in my window
outside of Elko
Along the phone lines
insulators hang in mid-air
trucks duel on the road
One more snow cap peak
another icy river
approaching land’s end
Closed-down bars hotels
hawk in a leafless tree
flies over the train
Wild west railroad bridge
a stone bison emerges
patchy winter fur
A frozen basin
the sun highlights ridge-back hills
places no one walks
Written in the sunset
the great cold is on the land
warm westernmost bay
The evening star bright
a final sculpted sundown
lonely Christmas lights
Magenta skyline
to indigo night-time
in thirty degrees
Lucid moon and stars
a moving wall of fir trees
open train window
In crystalline night
coming down from the mountains
slow snowfall of stars
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