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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book... “What Remains” Down in the Dirt, v143 (the March 2017 Issue) You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:

Order this writing in the book Study in Black the Down in the Dirt July-Dec. 2016 collection book		get the 418 page Jan.-April 2017 Down in the Dirt issue anthology 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Order this writing in the book the 2018 literary review date book (the 2017 poetry, flash fiction and artwork weekly paperback book)		get the 146 page poem, flash fiction & art weekly planner as a 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

The Old Railtrack

Samuel T. Franklin

Old railtrack sweating rust at sunset,
abandoned and broken and forgotten.
A strange sight in the city of trains,
like finding lilies growing in a ditch.

Sunfried asphalt broken in chunks.
Plywood in the windows of foreclosed houses,
shrieks of distant trains ghostcalling
through dark trees and the tunnel

that piped beneath the nameless tracks,
the concrete steps that led me down
into that cool chute beneath the earth
where shadows choked sunlight.

Where my flashlight lit
like a match in a cave
the graffitied and painted scrawlings
crawling all down that stone gullet,

where urban tattoos marked concrete
with rhymed names and accusations
and jungle-drawings of the monsters
that lurk on the edge of town,

the syringes and red eyes and rotten teeth.
Where quotes of dead poets
and shreds of cannibal longings
and half-finished prayers

were etched, offerings to a void
by unknown city souls, lonely roamers
drawn to the gleaming metal bones
rusting in the weeds,

where the world
and what lies beneath
blend together
in bitter harmony.

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