Long Train Running

Fernando Esteban Flores

August 2, 2026

Sometimes they slashed the barrio

like a switchblade gash of scribbled notes 

spilling across the clear page of space

Hasty messages posted over sheets of air

Sometimes they hobbled like drunken winos 

sidelong down the tracks

We’d wing rocks

just to hear thwack & zing

hymn of the inhospitable hour

Certain times they paced with such clarity

you can still see the conductor’s cool smile

Wave then wave back

to hoot or honk

Once we jumped an empty Santa Fe car

rocking, bucking

jumped right off

At twenty miles per hour

it was rush enough

Many times we’d look

for special boxcars 

marked with soul signs

Bums & tramps sketched

on rusted glare of steel

black cat’s whiskered face

smiling pig in pink

cracked heart crashing 

down in flaming wings

eerie-eyed clown

rusty postcards  

squelch & squeal of better times

What did we know of the Pacific

but Union Southern & Missouri  

The ocean deserts away from where we stood

Atlases on wheels heading south

Chihuahua Coahuila Tamaulipas

Places we could barely sound

Mexican Ferrocarrilles rumbling off our tongues

in an ancient language waiting to be found

Works of art etched in rust

Yellow Rorschach kitten snuggled 

into the comfy C of the Chesapeake & Ohio  

Caboose grumbling after the rickety stillness

Hardened caliche earth trembling

for the Burlington Northern

Its iron toll ringing

with every spike driven

by the faceless men who faced

the interminable sweat & rust 

of a hundred thousand miles 

of creosote & cheap labor

lost in the barren southwest Texas dust

to bridge the distances

between shantytowns & cactus

Grandfather Roberto’s ghost wandering the rails

with a tattered bag of ragged tales

I would never come to know

We always found ourselves back

—arriving or departing—

on the other side of los traques

Reverie before reality

Around the turn

the end of the line 

______________________________________________________________________

Chihuahua, Coahuila, Tamaulipas—Mexican states

Ferrocarrilles--trains

Los traques—the railroad track

Fernando Esteban Flores is a native son of Tejas, a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, and has published three books of poetry: Ragged Borders, Red Accordion Blues, & BloodSongs available through Hijo del Sol Publishing, published in multiple journals, reviews, newspapers, and online sites, selected in 2018-19 by the Department of Arts & Culture of the City of San Antonio, with support from Gemini Ink for his poem “Song for America V” (Yo Soy San Antonio) as one of 30 poems/poets to commemorate the City’s Tricentennial anniversary, and serves as poetry editor of the Catch the Next Journal of Pedagogy & Creativity. He is the founder of Voces Cósmicas, a group of emerging and established poets. His latest book is Song for America, published by Gnashing Teeth.

Train’s a Comin’

Jesse Doiron

July 5, 2026

If Kerl and Doris hadn’t lived next door,

the railroad tracks woulda been our neighbor—

not any louder than already was.

Quarter-hour midnight, it’d start to knock

the screen porch and rattle the kitchen crock.

Drunk old fool wantin’ more like always does

after evenin’ shift—try and get a fuck.

His woman had a way of bustin’ luck,

riled him up laughin’ at him just becuz.

You’d hear the diesel screamin’ long and low—

two of ‘em a hollerin’—one last blow.

“Goddammit!” louder than already was.           

Jesse Doiron has worked in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia as an educator and consultant. His teaching experience ranges from English for international business at the UC – Berkeley Extension in San Francisco to creative writing at the Mark Stiles Maximum Security Prison for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Texas Trains

Jim LaVilla-Havelin

February 1, 2026

half asleep at The Gage

and a train clacketty by

I remember now 

The Gage as whistlestop

all of Marathon set up

along the tracks

heading west and west and west

the sky’s the limit

our destiny manifest

clacketty clack

we thought we could we thought we could

calls to mind the photo —

The Golden Spike

with none of the faces — yellow, brown, black

who helped and laid down lives and track

and the new version of the photo with 

all those ghosts returned to claim their

tools, their rightful place

awake in the night at The Gage

and the train roars by heading 

west and west and west

Jim LaVilla-Havelin is the author of eight books of poetry, including A Thoreau Book (Alabrava Press, 2025). He is the co-editor of the University of Houston Press, Unsung Masters volume on Rosemary Catacalos (2025), serves as literary executor for her estate, and is assembling her unpublished work for a volume titled Sing!

An educator, editor, and community arts activist, LaVilla-Havelin was, for over 10 years, Poetry Editor for the San Antonio Express-News. He has been the Coordinator of National Poetry Month in San Antonio’s annual activities for 18 years (as of 2025). In 2019, he was awarded the City of San Antonio’s Distinction in the Arts for Literary Arts.

A creative writing teacher for almost 50 years - in addition to his 12 years of teaching at The Cyndi Taylor Krier Juvenile Correctional Treatment Center for Gemini Ink’s Partners Program - LaVilla-Havelin teaches senior citizens in the Go Arts Program through Bihl Haus Cultural Arts, and has been Poet in Residence at the Young Women’s Leadership Academy, teaching high school students.

His most recent 2025 poetry collection is from Lamar University Literary Press, Mesquites Teach Us to Bend.

Out on the Edge of Darkness

Chris Ellery

February 1, 2026

Oh, peace train take this country
Come take me home again

Yusuf Islam, “Peace Train”

The train we boarded in our youth

Is forced off track in the frozen north.

The engines steam and people scream,

Yet voices cold and weary sing, 

Let freedom ring! Let freedom ring!

With masks and guns the robbers came—

No trace of mercy, law, or shame—

To kill for once and all the dream.

Yet still to deadened hearts we sing,

Let freedom ring! Let freedom ring!

We rode long years in storms of strife,

Through vales of fire, o’er alps of ice.

And still we see what yet can be!

Let freedom ring! Let kindness ring!

Roll on! Roll on, Peace Train!

Chris Ellery is the author of The Big Mosque of Mercy and five other poetry collections and a member of the Fulbright Alumni Association, the Texas Institute of Letters, and the Texas Association of Creative Writers.

Racing the Eagle

Clarence Wolfshohl

January 4, 2026

The Eagle came screaming down

the Mo Pac rails.  We waved

and pulled imaginary cords 

to urge the engineer to blare

his whistle.  The earth trembled

even beyond the barbed wire fence

as the train sped into San Antonio.

We five mounted on our cast-off ponies

put heels to their flanks

and raced along the fence

gradually and then more speedily

losing ground, the iron horse

faster, more powerful than ours.

But we galloped on, roar

in our ears fading 

off southwest toward 

the Mo Pac depot in town.

Clarence Wolfshohl has been active in the small press as writer and publisher for over fifty years, publishing poetry and non-fiction in many journals, both print and online, including, Agave, Cape Rock, and New Letters, and Texas Poetry Assignment.  His latest publication is Play-Like (Alien Buddha Press, 2025).