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Unsung Masters volume on Rosemary Catacalos (2025), serves as literary executor for her estate, and is assembling her unpublished work for a volume titled Sing!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).