{"id":3690,"date":"2022-06-03T11:12:53","date_gmt":"2022-06-03T18:12:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/?p=3690"},"modified":"2024-12-09T09:35:20","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T17:35:20","slug":"10-poems-by-alexandra-teague","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/10-poems-by-alexandra-teague\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten Poems by Alexandra Teague"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"issue71\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Found in\u00a0Willow Springs 71<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to Author Profile<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

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Ten Poems by Alexandra Teague<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Transcontinental<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
10 Poems<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In a railroad to the Pacific we have a great national work, transcending, in its magnitude, and in its results, anything yet attempted by man.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • A<\/em>merican <\/em>Railroad <\/em>jou<\/em>rnal<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

     <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

     <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    “Gunpowder and Chinamen were the only weapons… builders had with which to fight the earth and stone through which they had to pass, laid in their path centuries ago by the Creator.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \n
    • Engineer<\/em> for <\/em>th<\/em>e <\/em>Transcontinental <\/em>Rai<\/em>lroad<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

       <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      I. Crazy Judah (1859)<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

       <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      They said he might as well build a railroad
      to the moon, his maps laid out like lakes
      in the desert. What is needed is a proper survey.<\/em>
      His maps laid out like a whorehouse Bible.
      Who would touch it? Who believed a man
      who made a mountain range a molehill,
      who tunneled and gun-powdered granite
      fact to lay his tracks out of the ruck of things<\/em>?
      Who promised tightrope-narrow ridges
      holding trains–not years from now, but
      now. What’s needed are the men and money,<\/em> not just plans<\/em>. Who charted routes across
      the Long Ravine and Donner Pass where
      fear split open: black oak in a lightning
      storm, where rivers spilled like thought
      too fast to follow. His wife said, You’re giving<\/em>
      away your thunder<\/em>. He said, This country is<\/em>
      a house divided<\/em>. Who would join it? With
      what hammers and stakes could men cross
      a continent he had to sail around to say,
      There is another way. It is a well-known maxim:<\/em>
      The gods wait for a beginning before they lend their aid.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

       <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      II. The Big Four (1862)<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

       <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Because they were men of vision,
      which meant men of money, believers
      in the Northern route to the new free West,
      believers in the pocket-creased maps of surveyors, the bare-armed muscles
      of strangers, the sledgehammer strikes,
      the new flanged rails, the country healed
      in its iron lung–they invested funds to sail from the Eastern seaboard and
      around Cape Horn: shiploads of crowbars,
      hammers, dump carts, rails, switches,
      spikes, tents, hitches, plows, drills, everything but camels (the Confederate
      plan to cross the Southern desert):
      the country an infinite snake: mouth
      gaping around the future’s iron tail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

       <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      III. The Workers (1866)<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

       <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      The records admit no record of the hands <\/em>
      and fingers lost<\/em> in the blasting: the grand and every day explosions of granite into light,
      the times they tried to hide in time but couldn’t (something in the way: a horse,
      loose rubble, exhaustion). Or the loss from sledgehammers. Eighteen pounds rising,
      striking, rising. The first heat of day slicing cold muscles–that swinging til only opium
      could hold them still for sleep- the pig-iron snow-plow pushing even then through
      dreams–splitting continents, families, youth into heaps beside it, or the train steaming off
      its tracks through their bones: their coughs like nails in tamarack trusses, their ribs
      full of gunpowder, as outside the iron ribbon, as history would call it, shone. As if
      all they were doing was stitching along the country’s seam: shimmery, simple,
      whatever fingers they had, safe in thimbles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

       <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      IV. The Sierras ( 1867)<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

       <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Already dead of yellow fever years before,
      Judah never saw two thousand men from China
      work for weeks inside those long white tents
      of snow: the tunnels they lived inside, ate inside, blasted, and tunneled further, the walls
      they hard-packed against gravity, the dank smoke\u00ad-
      haze and fear of falling sky in which they learned
      to move like snow itself: a stiff suspension, particulate, a joined numbness. Only the steam
      of tea, a bit of corn meal. Talk of eating
      the horses. Silence for days after the avalanche,
      a weighted quiet like every white key on a piano played at once, then never played.
      The survivors working faster now: black powder,
      rails, reed-thatched baskets, in which, when spring
      came, they would dangle over chasms–afraid of the air now–blinking in the rain-bleached light:
      the river below gleaming like another railroad
      built while they burrowed: all rushing wheels\u00ad–
      what the dead, when they thawed, would ride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

       <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      V. Sherman’s Peace Council with the Indians (1867)<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

       <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      We
      built
      iron
      roads
      and
      you
      cannot
      stop
      the<\/em>
      locomotive
      any<\/em>
      more
      than
      you
      can
      stop
      the
      sun
      or<\/em>
      moon.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

       <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      VI. Ferguson’s Diary (1868)<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

       <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      And then we passed through a dismal
      and desolate country: a terrible country:
      all sagebrush and grease weed and the mules
      out of their depth in the river, swiftly
      carried by currents: the awful look of terror and despair as two men went down. My level
      tangled in the wagon box, so I had to drop
      it or be dragged under. I never found it
      or the guns or men we’d lost. No matter the death toll, the engineers are concerned
      with the bridge and making some money. Some Indians made a dash on some pilgrims
      at sunrise. Later we were attacked by Indians
      and succeeded in shooting one. Four men
      were killed and scalped. I have no sympathy for the red devils. May their dwelling places
      and habitations be destroyed. May the greedy
      crows hover over their silent corpses. Two men were shot this evening
      in a drunken row. Another man and four
      mules drowned. A man was wounded, another
      killed: occasioned by some personal difficulty. The carelessness and reckless disregard
      for life and limb, the promiscuous shooting
      is perfectly outrageous and alarming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Still, the bridge is a success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      The first passenger train crossed
      the ridge at noon. The time is coming
      and fast, too, when
      there will be no West.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

       <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      VII. Hell-on-Wheels (1868)<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

       <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Hell, one foreman said, must have been raked
      to furnish them: these men and women who rolled from field to field: the buildings slap\u00ad-
      dash built: canvas and shanties: the Germania House with its whiskey and 50 cent meals, its hurdy-gurdy
      dancing: skirts hiked up to God-Knows: and the rail crews’ hungers sledgehammer heavy:
      lanterns and legs and the hip bones of strangers: a few slung-down hours: something stronger
      than iron: Benton, Laramie, Bear River City, Corrine: which is fast becoming civilized-several men <\/em>
      having been killed there already:<\/em> the alkali dust ankle-deep and shifty as gunpowder: the men
      white as roaches in a barrel of flour:<\/em> the women powdered sweet over filth: the one bookstore
      (in one photograph) maybe a joke: a den of antiquity: the broken spines, loose pages
      caught in these crosswinds like the cottonwood where Dugan–hands cuffed by vigilantes\u00ad–
      had begged to leave the country, and he did,<\/em> when the rope pulled taut, and the wagon drove <\/em>
      away:<\/em> the corpse of Damocles dangling over scrub weed: the trains unloading
      their own future rails: a bitch birthing whelps in the dust: bones under bourbon floorboards:
      it was monstrous, wondrous, hideous inside those tents<\/em> and buildings: transitory as soap bubbles:<\/em>
      everything rainbows and scum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

       <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      VIII. Jack Morrow and Friends (1868)<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
      -After the photograph by Arundel Hull<\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

       <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      After Hull climbs his camera down from the windmill-half-built,
      rickety as light on this dust-storm morning–
      after he climbs down from a boxcar–the station sleeping
      in the drunk dawn–the barrels of gunpowder Morrow stole
      from his own wagon trains emptied (for later sale), then filled with sand
      to sell to strangers: this moment: Morrow seated on a barrel, long legs
      draped over the hoop, pinstriped, casual, palms against thighs,
      his elbows jutted out to show he knows his body’s value: twice the space
      of other men’s. His posse–even the man in front–a backdrop: creased-up
      brims and crumpled suits and watch fobs shining in this flat light
      that is not about shining but staring straight like the man who chose
      not to steal this camera when he robbed Hull’s stage. Who can
      perform at will the miracle of gunpowder into sand into money
      into (short-counted) ties to sell the railroad. Who lights his cigars
      from burning bank notes while the workers wait.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

       <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      IX. Roving Delia Fish Dance (1869)<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

       <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      This telegrammed challenge from Hopkins to Huntington
      which meant, decoded: We’re laying track at a rate of 4 miles <\/em>
      every day<\/em>. The U.P. pioneers with their shovels at dawn
      aligning the night-laid ties as more men moved behind:
      pairs with tongs to lift the rails, position them, drop
      them. Position them, drop them. The foreman calling
      Down<\/em>! The fields tamped and graded for their iron crop\u00ad
      U.P. to C.P., C.P. to U.P.–that must outrace its own growing.
      The trains caught in snowstorms. Stalling. The papers
      calling the Union Pacific an elongated human slaughterhouse<\/em>.
      The foreman calling out Down<\/em>! The papers asking Where <\/em>
      and when will they ever be joined? ROVING DELIA FISH <\/em>
      DANCE.<\/em> We are working as fast as is human- headlong
      as slick fish. We are dancing with sledgehammers, tongs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

       <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      X. The Golden Spike, Promontory, Utah (May 10, 1869)<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

       <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Even then–noise, confusion,
      crowding. The reporters
      couldn’t see. History says
      Hewes (a baron of sand dunes)
      presented it. 13 ounces approximate <\/em>
      gold<\/em>. No sledge marks to show
      if it was struck at all–if Stanford
      missed, as they say. No marks
      from removal. Laurel and gold.
      As if the railroad had always been
      a simple shining. What’s needed <\/em>
      are the men and money<\/em>. A simple
      striking, like luck in a pan.
      What’s needed is a proper survey.<\/em>
      The country laid out like a map
      of its future: a whorehouse Bible,
      a house united. Judah’s
      widow (by coincidence,
      their anniversary) not invited.
      I refused myself to everyone that day.<\/em>
      Those two trains waiting to inch
      nose to nose: The No. 119,
      The Jupiter. Smash of champagne
      (or wine) against the cattle catchers,
      strike of blows (or silence
      of the silver maul’s misses).
      Thar spike bristling like an oak
      in lightning. The live wires flashing
      that one bright signal
      coast-unto-coast. It is done.<\/em> (Not years from now, but now.)<\/em>
      Cannon fire in Salt Lake City,
      D.C., San Francisco. That spike:
      a single rail to the sun.<\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":25234,"featured_media":619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpo365_audiences":[],"wpo365_private":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3690"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25234"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3690"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37548,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3690\/revisions\/37548"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}