The Poetry and Short Stories of Anthony Watkins The Writing Forum’s Writer of the Month - January 2004 The Writing Forum’s Writer of the Month - February 2011   AUTHOR’S BIO: I have been at various times, and still am for the most part, the following: poet, construction worker, used bookstore owner, truck driver, local and over the road custom budder of pecan trees, pig farmer, salesman of house plants, cars, home remodeling services, Pepsi products and advertising publisher and, editor of a literary quarterly Abundance - A Harvest of Life, Literature & Art. Born in Jackson, Mississippi in 1959, I have lived nearly half of my life in Alabama and the other half in Florida. I grew up deeply religious, conservative and am now an agnostic liberal active Democrat. Also my Blog “Night Heron Poets”, where you can also participate, may be accessed by clicking here. To access my short story published here at The Writing Forum, please click here. Email: uplandpoet@comcast.net   POETRY BY ANTHONY WATKINS Click on the button next to any title in the list below to be linked to that poem’s location on the page:   Cold Tile   Still   There is a Summer Heat   I Want a Coffee   The Dog We Got for a Broken Arm   Dying a Little Every Day   The Mist of a Horse Track   Rusted Iron and Steel   Elm Street, Hattiesburg, Mississippi   A Moment of Auburn Hair   Celery in Everything   On Certain Winter Mornings   Turning Fields   Daylight Moon   The One I've Done   Between Six and Seven   Sing For Me Another Round   Back Door   Full Moon Over Texas   The Ways of Money   Three Days Worth of Groceries   The End of Expectations   On Passing into that Good Night   Very First One   There Stands a Post in My Backyard   Today the Paint is Fresh   I Would Not Be Graveyard Dirt   The Seven Pound Cup of Coffee   After the Door Had Opened   How to See Alabama   Glamour of Poverty   No Seepage   The Water Carvers   The Sweat of Horses   What to Do When God is Gone   A SMALL GOD   A MOTHER'S DREAM   Soft Shoe   French Poodle Women   Cold Tile Cold fifty year old tile On the bottom of my bare feet Soft winter morning light Drifting in through a west facing window Like mourners drifting into a bar After a wake. The slight smell of my wife's perfume Opium that I gave her for Christmas Then out to the hardwood floor Of the bedroom, just as old And into the soft kingsize bed Not too old and with fresh linens I realize as I look at the forest green walls And sink beneath the covers That for all the hard times And there have been plenty With maybe more yet to come I am comfortable And comfortably middle class And with that, I think of those who aren't And snuggle a little deeper.   Still Pull the thick fluffy silky cover up And slide deep down Like a corpse slipping off of a rock Into the cool green pool of sleep That is Sunday afternoon. Though I love to stand thigh deep In the sun splashed rushing water of life By Sunday afternoon I look for a quite still eddy And fall like a stone Silently bouncing off submerged walls Into the dreams of life.   There is a Summer Heat This is a part of summer Where the heat is not your enemy Where it is there, and if you try to work You will feel it quick But for walking a dog Or standing in the shade It warms your bones And promises trips to the pool Summer, still gentle and green Without the agression of August A day warm enough For ice cream or lemonade More as a pleasure Than a relief This is summer of dreams Of barefoot school boys Looking out the open windows Of unairconditioned classrooms And slow moving ceiling fans And dirty oiled wood floors There is a summer heat Filled with longing, not dread. © 4/18/11   I Want a Coffee If you are sophisticated, You might say you want a coffee With a taste of chocolate, or a full fruity flavor Maybe a hint of oak, or a nutty bite. If you tastes run simpler You might ask for it fresh With a little half and half Or a spoon full of sugar. But I want a coffee That tastes of wood fires In a mountain cabin Of a winter morning's frosty balconies I want the coffee of hot tropical nights And revolution steaming away From the heavy mugs on wooden tables In the outdoor island cafes For the coffee that takes me To New Orleans day and night Before and after the flood With graveyards and trolleys With that overwhelming feeling That grows in my heart When I think of those I love Parents, children, and friends I want that love in my mouth Overflowing with comfort While longing to be near them This is the coffee I would drink For this coffee I would would walk The narrow mountain paths Leading a burro laden down With burlap bags of beans. I want a coffee that is Only all of these things. © 4/14/11   The Dog We Got for a Broken Arm The dog we got for a broken arm Or more exactly for our son As a comfort for the summer He spent in a cast due to incompentence And hypocrisy that means We will never eat at Chick Fil A again Well, she lays on the hardwood floor Bought with tax money a few years ago And my sweet wife snuggles Under her fuzzy red throw And watches a recording of the Oscars Or Fashion Police, or something The little boy is nearly a year past His broken arm, and sleeps sweetly And soundly and the dog arises For a little guard duty and to check for cats And Emmylou sings to me thru headphones If I could be happier I don't know how And now the dog we got for a broken arm Curls under my old wingback and my feet And falls into a peaceful sleep.   Dying a Little Every Day When I was a little bitty baby ...like the song says And my mama rocked me to sleep Now in the dying light of a Thursday afternoon The neighbor lady walks with effort After putting the trash to the curb Into the slowly dying house The street cat we call Faulkner But our neighbors call something else Sits at my gate and grooms herself And cries out for a bit of food While I take the very good, very cheap, very quick Chinese take out in for supper And the thing is, I never see it coming Never see it going, one day at a time My babies grow up And I just grow old And notice how my old friends Keep getting older or dying I listen to the old music I read the old books I don't watch TV, but it happens While I am on line Dying a little every day Is the way of all things Until we are all gone and no one Remembers we were ever here Like the faded technocolor Of a late Thursday afternoon ©Anthony Watkins   The Mist of a Horse Track About thirty years ago I had the good fortune To be a Pepsi delivery driver Which paid pretty good And made me work hard For my every dollar. But the best part Was the places I got to go The fanciest Country Clubs Waved me in without even a rolling stop And I could park On the street on Palm Beach I filled vending machines In spy sattelite tracking installaions And at the work bench where They built secret eltronic controls For nuclear submarines and Cia front organizations, Not that any of these compared To the training tracks Of harness racers Wheels and hooves picking up Small pieces of damp dirt And tossing them into the mist Of a cool Florida winter morning The sweet smell of hay and sweat Both human and horse Me, steady unloading soda, Barn after barn, then to the kitchen To Fill the stockroom and get a check. And if I had time, I would sit at the counter Between drivers and trainers And listen to the chatter Half Spanish, half English Drinking bitter burnt coffee In that warm damp room I felt I was part of a club More exclusive than all of Palm Beach Welcome in my Pepsi uniform Barred without it. I would love to share that world. But alas, it is closed to me now But in my mind I still see and smell The mist of a horse track. ©Anthony Watkins   Rusted Iron and Steel About a month ago The fair came to town Rides on flatbeds Wagons full of funnel cakes Cotton candy and corndogs And sweaty men tapping posts Into the ground All the while cranes Lifted plates and held pipe To be secured in place And soon shiny fantasies Sprang from the earth Like an alien invasion Which, of course, it was. Weeks passed, arm bands and tummy aches Tired late night children Crying to stay longer Acrobats and clowns Between acts, Smoking a little this, a little that, Wishing the crying babies would take flight. Today, the cranes are back The fair is due somewhere else And the shiny dreams and plastic cups Are packed away And the rusty pipes and plates Come down and are folded On to waiting flatbeds Wristbands fade in the mud And children will soon forget The fun had at great expense Until next year When the cranes put even rustier Pieces back together Soon covered by shiny painted dreams. Now a giant empty parking lot Keeps a month's worth of secrets And there is no sign Of rusted iron and steel. © 2/03/11   Elm Street, Hattiesburg, Mississippi  (and I never stopped, until this moment, to wonder who Hattie was) Sweet strong black coffee An old rambling city house With a sunny upstairs guest room And a gentle gas fireplace Flickering as we played Scrabble into the evening A hiding place closet In another upstairs bedroom Forever tied in my mind to "Cecelia" I got up to wash my face And the world had changed My aunt and uncle had gone Moved to Indiana forever But a summer on that tree shaded street Has lasted longer than the move Forty years, and I still dream Of early morning strong hot sweet coffee In the soft light of a white picket fence kitchen. © Anthony Watkins   A Moment of Auburn Hair I saw a woman today Whose auburn hair Was piled and pinned on her head And when the sun struck it so It reminded me of my friend Now dead one year So many years alive But now a memory Aren't we all? So full of time Little children dream And then we're grown And in a short, short time We are old for a while Then gone, to be missed Bitterly, at first But soon, only occasionally When the sun shines a certain way. When the light hits A leaf glistening I might think of another Or a painting of a barn I she my dead grandmother Gone ten years now Or this or that Brings back someone But only for a moment And in that moment We are born, live and die I miss them all, and more I will join them, soon enough And be from this life Forever gone, and nearly never were I saw a woman today, now she's gone. ©1/25/11 Anthony Watkins   Celery in Everything The weatherman says there is ice Over most of Central and East Texas The newsman says they closed the schools They closed Austin, too The weatherman says it's gonna be awhile He says the ice covers everything Don't expect it to get above freezing Until it all melts I think of that for a minute And wonder how it will ever melt And wonder how my friend is doing I wonder if her husband cooked In his poetically unpoetic way A big pot of soup, and what While I'm at it goes in Beef Barley Vegetable Soup, Does he cut little chunks of beef On a board, and add grains of pounded barley Maybe onions and celery, and carrots And little peas and flat-sided beans The weatherman moves on to the Midwest But I remain wondering at East Texas And my friend and her supper And whether Ken cleaned the board Between the beef and the veggies And why I love celery in everything ©Anthony Watkins 2/25/03   On Certain Winter Mornings  On certain winter mornings In a small bathroom In an old house Built in the town That arose to serve The needs of Palm Beach The light is more perfect Than Monet’s garden Or the Flemish painter’s window And I stand there And shave in the shower With no mirror to see And know I am luckier than most As the light streams in soft and glittery All at once And bounces off the Florida Blue tile With its shades of black and green So subtle as to be unmatchable And the soft, much scrubbed surface Of the old white cast iron tub Soaks up the excess light Leaving only the crystallized Light to dance Off the showering water On certain winter mornings I am luckier than most. © 1/08/11   Turning Fields On a cold and rainy day The fields are cut And turned one time, Weeds and mud Mixed altogether And it reminds me So much of a hundred Childhood days The good and the bad Going to Grandma's house Though neither Grandma, Nor the house remain Except burned into my mind Like yesterday The rain makes my middle-aged bones Ache like the old man I am becoming And my heart aches Like a bittersweet time machine. ©12/09/10   Daylight Moon Full, yet faded Against a pale blue late morning sky Edged like lace As out of place as I am Standing here In the parking lot of the art center A redneck and his truck Trying to be an artist Like you, my sister, the moon Trying to shine in the midday sun   The One I've Done I love the sound of an airplane Puttering across the sky Not the monsters that roar In and out of our nearby airport But the fixed wheel single engine jobs That look like a Volkswagen minibus And sound like a overgrown lawnmower Cutting a swath of blue from my sky I am sure the pilot is doing one hundred and ten But from here it looks so lazy So clear day perfect meandering West Palm to Sarasota for lunch And who has ever stood close to a plane Prop spinning at idle and not been Sucked into an old black and white "....you're getting on that plane with Victor" And then, to the swooshing throb Of blades in the air "Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow" Then back in the full color blue sky And a million miles an hour As a soul soars wings outstretched Likely as good as sitting down with family And saying "grace" to a god I don't believe in Over cornbread dressing and turkey One I've done and one I've not.   Between Six and Seven Saturday morning early Between taking the dog out And catching up on my email I hear my son Daddy, can I get up and play? I go to him, still snuggled in In his darkened bedroom I ask what he wants to do. Can we build a restaurant? He already has a store at Mimi and Papa’s And a TV station here For his cooking show All cardboard and cellophane We cut two smaller boxes And make them into one He takes a scrap And makes a menu board Ritz, Salad, Cornbread, Eggs We make real cornbread He cracks the egg, pours the meal Stirs it all with a whisk Then while it bakes, turns his restaurant Into part of his camping expedition An adventure that involves pillows And a blanket and the living room couch He tastes the cornbread and asks for chicken nuggets And somewhere it hits me There is so much to do Between six and seven.   Sing For Me Another Round Sweet Jesus, Mother Mary Sing for me another round About Fishermen and Publicans Drinking at the bar And Jesus walking on the water Before they hung him on a cross And made him a star Bigger than the one That shown in Bethlehem Oh, Bethlehem, not Jerusalem They tell me I was born there Going down to Egypt Hiding from the king Going down to Egypt To get a little corn They say I am from Nazareth And they sing of Jerusalem Death, donkeys and palm fronds But no matter where I go I will never leave thee My Bethlehem, Oh little town of stars and stables Sing me another round As I stand at the Jordan Knowing my crossing Will be on dry land ©Anthony Watkins (in memory of Dr. Lancaster, and all the other dead folks I love)   Back Door This morning I saw a Guatemalan Run over on his bicycle By a sedan turning against the light Get up without much more Than a bent front wheel And reminded me of the old man Who suffered a gash on my windshield A few weeks ago I hope he is doing alright. Then I remembered my bike And the way our neighborhood Had no backyard fences And how no one ever came to the front door We used crunchy gravel alleys And rode our bikes right up And dropped them on the back door step And came right in Asking my mama if I could play Even if she said "no" They were welcome to some cookies Now the latchkey preschoolers Come knock on the front door Asking if my son can play And usually he can't Because I'm afraid he'll get run over The backyards are fenced, With padlocks on the gates The back door, with chains and deadbolt Only opened to take out the trash And when I need to check on things I miss my summers, for him, The ones he'll never know On long slow afternoons When life happened in the backyards And kitchens of neighborhood friends We don't live at the back door, anymore We don't live in the yard And it makes me a little sad And I wonder, will anyone remember When we are all gone. © May 30, 2010   Full Moon Over Texas (for my great friend, Brenda Black White) On some fine summer evening When the moon is full I'm going to Texas But first I will have to find A special car for the trip I'll be looking where you look For a nineteen seventy six White Cadillac Eldorado With a more than a little rust And, of course the A/C Won't work at all But the electric windows will I'll go to Goodwill and stock up on cassettes Of Janis Joplin and Lyle Lovett And maybe find the Outlaw album With Willie and Waylon, and Jessie And the other guy I can't remember I'll drive north and west And maybe make Mobile in time For breakfast at Waffle House I wonder if they have a bunch Of cheap hotels scattered down 98, Or did Katrina get them all If I find one, I'll crash And sleep 'til supper, Eat some crawfish and head out Sailing west under that big moon Surely I will see Texas the next morning At least New Boston Then I will spend a hot week In the Panhandle, Austin and San Antone Before hitting the border That ain't near as bad as they say I'll buy some Mariachi music At a flea market And cruise from Brownsville to El Paso Seeing every angel in Texas Some dead, some alive. My wife is afraid of Texas And there are plenty there To cause her fear But all I remember are the nice folk Who buy strangers drinks And pull to the shoulder to let you pass Some fine summer evening When the moon is full I am going to Texas (Note: Brenda Black White passed away in the past year) © May 26, 2010   The Ways of Money Fancy paper napkins, wall-to-wall carpet And central air, Play-Doh and Lego And you can't play in there Theses are the ways of money I have known all my life We didn't have any, We didn't go to summer camp But I knew if we did These are the things The ways of money Were clear to me Today I have so much I had the carpet And took it out Paid extra for hardwood Which is where I started And central air has kept me cool Since Nineteen-Seventy- Three My son has Play-Doh, And Legos, too I don't really think about these As the ways of money, anymore But yesterday, I had to buy napkins, And I thought about saving A dollar or two For we are nearly broke Yet, I decided, if I can't have money I'll settle for the ways of fancy paper napkins ©June 8, 2010   Three Days Worth of Groceries Three days worth of groceries And money coming tomorrow I never thought I’d be here again I've been richer And I've been poorer Its true what they say, Richer is better I'm glad the cupboard isn't empty Glad money is on its way But I hate the margin being so thin Good times are a comin' I can smell it like rain on the wind Only wish the downpour Would go ahead and start today! ©June 6, 2010   The End of Expectations We have planned and painted Shopped and designed your nursery We have dreamed of all the things, The smiles, the tears, the joy and weariness You are sure to bring From Valentines Day, when we first began To expect you, through the heady days Of baby showers, ultrasounds and naming On to now, when you are so ready to come To you room of soft light and Pooh borders Your mother moves slowly and tires of your weight But in five days we will end the expecting And begin the love of suckling, diapers Rocking and cooing, knowing full well How tiny fingers can grasp one's heart You, Christopher, are loved in advance And have been for nearly a year, With awe, joy, and a bit of sheer terror We look forward to the end of expecting And the beginning of the unexpected. ©Anthony Watkins 10/13/04   On Passing Into That Good Night There are times when it seems welcome Though I always said I would fight, Like my grandmother, at eighty-six Not ready, yet to go, still living every moment But sometimes it seems like along and welcome sleep To rest my weary self forever in the stillness Of the last and lasting good night No more worries, peace,at last Then I think of all I love,the people The places, the food, the land And every cause I hold dear But most of all my love For my babies, my wife, friends and family That I will never see soon enough, And I rise to fight against the sun, the traffic and stress of work Somedays I would welcome the good night But not today, not yet, I do not lay my burdens down I live another day, for you and for me. ©Anthony Watkins   Very First One When I look into your sleeping face And see what you have become Since this day one year ago How long and how short a year A new born in my arms I held you with love and hope and fear Knowing you, like your brothers wouldgrow Too fast, too soon be grown and gone Wondering if I was too old To be a good father, to even live Long enough for you to have what you need Sometimes I still wonder. But I know I love you more every day, little boy of the lights You are a blessing to this soon to be old man A gift I am grateful for, so I say Happy Birthday, Christopher, Happy very first one! ©Anthony Watkins   There Stands a Post in My Backyard There stands a post in my backyard I am sure some school age child Is the cause of its being there Once a shiny red post With a bird feeder and a pinwheel For a weather vane Set just so, for best viewing From her Mama's kitchen window A proud and glowing child, I'm sure Today, the pin wheel is missing As is the glass from the feeder In fact the post is barely visable Some volunteer vine, half way Between trumpet and poison ivy Covers it, a green coat from base to top What pieces of wood still show Are faded, twisted and splintered But I hate to remove some child's dream So there stands a post in my backyard ©Anthony Watkins   Today the Paint is Fresh Though the house is old, Today the paint is fresh And the caulking new On the front gallery The rails and post are from trees Not long dead and felled And while I can admire The prettiness of the new I am yearning for the day When the wood is weathered And the paint fades and peels Then I will sit, foot upon the rail One of the old men of my street Watching the children pass by Drinking my green tea and smiling No longer the shiny new But the old always there porch And I the old always there man Today the paint is fresh And we don't even yet have the chair ©Anthony Watkins   I Would Not Be Graveyard Dirt Who stirs up my dust and will not let me sleep? The earth of my bones does not belong as a curse Upon the steps of a stranger, leave me be I caused enough trouble alive, let me stay gone A memory, an ancient fading, to be recalled At Christmas and on the day of my birth By those who were cursed with me in life Let the strangers alone with me Let me remain, inert lost dirt in some graveyard Who stirs my dust? May their curse be on them. ©Anthony Watkins 5/11/03   The Seven Pound Cup of Coffee Well, maybe all the weight isn't coffee The great black mug might be half, Thick to hold the heat against the morning I gently nurse and occasionally chug The cooling extract of my favorite drug And pound the keyboard in the dark Of predawn, the hours of death, But my coffee keeps me from dying today Even though the doctors all agree My seven pound cup of coffee will close my veins And raise my pressure and one day the magic Will turn and kill instead of wake Until then, I strain my wrist and raise The mighty mug to my lips for another shot ©Anthony Watkins 5/10/03   After the Door Had Opened And I walked through like a man Proud to be a pig farmer, A truck driver, a jock with a rifle And a poet stealing from the Bible I don't know who went first, Hemingway or Twain? Maybe Doctor King, preaching, marching and dying It sure wasn't Wallace, the one I got to meet It had to be Grandma from the last century With a silver braid all down her back And every word said to be heard, meant and understood After the door had opened I picked up my pen Wrote it all down for you to remember Like it was something that happened to you Just my notes, just me passing through ©Anthony Watkins 2003   How to See Alabama We could eat at Chris' The place where Bubba buys the dogs. We could buy barbecue From old black men at country stores And pick our real tomatoes. I could walk you through pecan orchards That I worked in. We could freeze our bottoms Panning for gold in a shaded summer creek. It might not be too bad that way ©Anthony Watkins   Glamour of Poverty I sit on the ground Three languages from home And look into sincere Mayan eyes The strange smell of burning From trees I do not recognize Mixes with the chilling mist And drifts over native And alien alike, smoking The fried bread air between us. Children, not hungry, But with an appetite Stare at the stranger that I am From the glamour of poverty Like a National Geographic cover And the innocence I project. Is this not just another Day at the office in Belize? ©Anthony Watkins   No Seepage Grease and water run together In thin sheets on the parking lot As I walk down Madison For an early Krystal lunch. My cousin overpays for a car wash While I eat and contemplate Her mother's grave and a stranger's Mausoleum with moldy seepage Growing and dripping onto the granite walls After shopping for a toilet repair kit We visit my dying aunt Whose husband we buried yesterday With the dead and the living attended I remove the tank and replace the bolts Set the new gasket and tighten There is no seepage here. ©Anthony Watkins 5/17/03   The Water Carvers Tiny light bony fingers Etch scratches, gathering I know not what Dart away mostly in time To be spared consumption By the churning bass Who carves baroque Arches and chandeliers As graceful as itself But the bony fingered mosquito Only succeeds in feeding The greedy gliding duck Who turns a furrowed molding More perfect the carpenter's routing Yet a minute passes And the water lies flat again. Anthony Watkins ©1/20/04   The Sweat of Horses The flies rise up out of the dust With a hum and a glisten of light Black iridescent wings flash And the horses swish their tails As the clopping hooves echo mutedly Against the thick green woods The dust covers the wagon wheels Pressing hard under the load The team pulls against the drag of dust Pulls an overloaded wagon and me, I ride like one more fly as the cargo shifts And the sweat of the horses gleam Into a foam on the necks straining Up a rise in the mid August heat Flecks fall into the dust turning it brown Under the steady well shod feet I dream of the creek near by And know the horses smell the water I wonder of what they dream While the sweat of horses falls into the dust. Anthony Watkins ©12/20/03   What to Do When God is Gone It wasn't the way he started parking The old white Rambler American station wagon Three blocks away on the other side of the bridge That crossed the river that used to flood Years before I was born It wasn't the way he started cooking with butter And calling me his father's name And asking about the garden we haven't planted Since I was a boy, worrying about the bugs on the squash and the tomatoes It was the songs he hummed, wordlessly over and again The songs he used to sing, songs he wrote for himself I go over on Saturdays and wash the car to the pearly white, So it still looks like it did The day he drove it home in nineteen-sixty-four But I wonder every time I have to go get it And drive it across that old bridge Should I hide the keys, should he still be alone? When will I know, and how long before god is gone? Will he reset all the presets on that old AM radio Or cut out the little diamonds on the vinyl seats How will I know, what will the sign be? To tell me when its time to take god back home? And who will I ask what to do after he is gone? ©Anthony Watkins   A SMALL GOD "It is good to be a minor god", she said, "To command, with certainty, the sun to rise and again to set, The spring to thaw, The winter to freeze, these I command." "A small god must know one's limits and powers, I do not curse the wind, only stones that can not move." "It is good to be A small god," she thought, "No cathedrals for pigeons nor bats to defile." She stirred the pot and smiled. ©Anthony Watkins   A MOTHER'S DREAM Obsidian, the mother, nurses her child, the gift, dreaming of freedom and home. A GOD-CHILD MUST SURELY NOT DIE IN CHAINS AS SHE WAS BORN. The plantation is mild in winter, but there is no cool place now, sweat gathers on her nipple, mixing with Gumbo's milky meal. Black tiny eyes follow her fingers, Cotton, snowy white, tears at her fingers in contrast to the sweet suckling. Obsidian knows joy and sadness like ice and fire in one stone. Her gift is hope for a light she will never see, the light of freedom's train taking her children home TO MYTHICAL AFRICAN KINGDOMS. ©Anthony Watkins   Soft Shoe He used to wear Hushpuppies, Gray and brown, Now its Birkenstocks, with socks He's growing old as a modern man Without pedigree or pedicure He takes comfort as it comes. or alternatively with easy rhymes: He used to wear Hushpuppies Brown and gray Now its Birkenstocks, with socks He's growing old a modern man, The modern way Without pedigree or pedicure He takes comfort where he can. Anthony Watkins ©2/04/04   French Poodle Women I know these French Poodle women Who only travel by train And the silly perfume eating men Who gladly follow them to Paris Even if the train runs from Chicago Even when the ocean turns to rain Too many nights of cigarettes And champagne have clouded the station Ticket men and conductors agree We need more lake front commuters And less French Poodle women Riding from Chicago to Champaign © Anthony Watkins