Noodling
J. Albin Larson
He said that if you found the right hole, sometimes a catfish as big
as a human would clamp down on your forearm. That you had to fight
underwater and be sure to push your legs off the bottom or you might
not be able to wrestle the huge fish to the surface.
Cross-Country
Catherine J.S. Lee
Emily dismisses the beach, its strip of glassy luxury towers beyond the means of her careful purse. It's stolen money, but it won't be spent frivolously.
Men Are Like Plants
Tamara Linse
If a geranium were a man, it’d be a pimp. I’m not kidding.
All those showy flowers, sorta like gold chains and purple polyester,
don’t you think?
The Silences
Eric D. Goodman
They were young, this couple seated on the train. Too young, their friends back home had teased them, to be riding an old-fashioned locomotive.
Almost Rickshaw
Tom Sheehan
I started back toward the Center, hearing only the peepers kissing the night and the crickets holding up their end of all things lovely. The night enveloped Maye and Harvey, and me.
The Far
Jenny Dunning
Not until he saw Moll, his beloved ’74 Subaru wagon, sitting in the high grass at the end of the gravel drive, did Sully know for sure where he was: at The Far, the commune where he had lived during the eighties. How he had gotten here, he couldn’t say.
Forsaking All Others
Elizabeth Buechner Morris
In the beginning we talked about our class and our classmates, wondering how we could relate to Gum Popper, Eyebrow Piercer, Boots, and Tattoo Boy; doubting if we had the ability to affect The Slouch to become one of the gang.
Departure
Rich Seeber
It, it, it!, Tilda thought. Half an hour ago it had pressed against
her thigh through his trousers. It had shown the courage to request
what neither of them had had the courage to approach with words.
Fleischer
Christopher Justice
But Fleischer's stories always returned to one topic: Bob Feller.
No matter how our conversations started, they always ended with anecdotes or debates
about “Rapid Robert”.
Fleischer
Christopher Justice
But Fleischer's stories always returned to one topic: Bob Feller.
No matter how our conversations started, they always ended with anecdotes or debates
about “Rapid Robert”.
Fleischer
Christopher Justice
But Fleischer's stories always returned to one topic: Bob Feller.
No matter how our conversations started, they always ended with anecdotes or debates
about “Rapid Robert”.
The Professor and the Strikeout King
Samuel Todd
Children dream many dreams. Larry’s one and only dream was to become a major league baseball player. But his first year in Little League had been a dismal failure.
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Rave On
Welcome to Slow Trains, where the postcards never stop.
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Slow Trains in print & Best Online Journals, guest-edited by Pam Houston
This is Paris
Maria O'Connell
Always, I returned to my little hotel room on the sixth floor,
to the windows without screens and the birds that flew by but never in, to the sounds of laughter
and lovers and the lyricism of French words wafting up from the medieval street below.
sophistication pales
against
the rhythm
of slow trains
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I'm Not Jack Kerouac
Robert Voris
We never needed to be higher, drunker, better fed, further awed
at any one time. Rather, our desire for the next mountain hike, Guinness-fueled conversation,
or ocean swim remained unfulfilled.
Recalling Henry Rollins
John G. Rodwan, Jr.
One thing that comes up frequently in the tour log from
the 1980s is violence, both among audience members and by audience members against
the band. He describes being punched, kicked, spit at, burned with cigarettes and doused in urine.
The Magic..........s
Elizabeth Barrett
“He is not going to wear his Yankees cap,” my mother said, looking at me like I had suddenly grown two heads.
“Who buries a relative in a baseball cap, for God’s sake?”
Send comments to: editor (at) slowtrains (dot) com.
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See Her Hands How They Plait
Ellen Pober Rittberg
do not give her a life / of vague longings / watching the world /
from room corners / her body, bowed / but let her not run too fast
Paris
Jumpin’ Jack Flash
Bernadette McBride
laying lusty picnics on Montmartre / its soft twilight yielding / shadow enough to stir fervor for a life of art / and quirk
Highway of Diamonds
Robert Warrington
When his head became heavy / he started to walk / down a highway of diamonds / through a country of immigrants /
resentful of immigrants / and saw in each star / a faulty utopia
The Kind of Coversation You Never Had
Babies Should
Jessy Randall
Babies should pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Babies should not sell out.
Remember Paris?
James Anderson
They're different now I / except for this table / and Lyndale Avenue and your / hair and the way you smiled /
at me and the way he always calls
The Roses
Linden
Leonore Wilson
they see us in the early morning / devoted to union, as if the rain and / mist of our song could hover /
in mid-air like the eight-string / burgeoning of the thrush’s voice
Robert Johnson’s Cigarette
John Bright
turning the blues
into something else / a pact with the devil / a hell hound on his trail / the lights on a locomotive
1954
Night Moves
Ian C. Smith
The boy rehearses his life / as if he senses the road ahead / conjures a blanket of rain /
to cushion sound / and sweeten the atmosphere / turns another page
Painted Desert
Kimberly D. Robinson
Grains of sand tell a story / multi-colored memories / seraphs busy / making our hourglass
Painted Desert
Kimberly D. Robinson
Grains of sand tell a story / multi-colored memories / seraphs busy / making our hourglass
Painted Desert
Kimberly D. Robinson
Grains of sand tell a story / multi-colored memories / seraphs busy / making our hourglass
Painted Desert
Kimberly D. Robinson
Grains of sand tell a story / multi-colored memories / seraphs busy / making our hourglass
Painted Desert
Kimberly D. Robinson
Grains of sand tell a story / multi-colored memories / seraphs busy / making our hourglass
Our continuing section on peace & politics during these critical times
Books from Slow Trains writers
All material in Slow Trains is copyrighted to the original authors and may not be reproduced without permission. Violators will be prosecuted.
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