Bones for Glory

Sing loud like a train kissing Birmingham good morning...

Bones for Glory

The sound of the 5am train rolling through Birmingham,
steel wheels popping against iron tracks,
makes me want to rise from this half-sleep
and move my life like Woody would.
Gotta rise up outta this place,
wander the roads of this sweet earth;
gotta spread the word; make it heard
loud and painful as a train whistle at 5am
on the Southside of Birmingham.
Gonna tell the people what it’s about;
even if I gotta shout:
People, get up!
Wake up, people!
There's a song in you crying out to be heard;
crying out like a lone whistle in the night.
People gotta roll; throw them bedclothes off;
wake and moan and groan, and let them bones roll.
Wanna know what your future holds?
It’s in your bones.
Roll your bones to see what turns up.
People gotta kiss the morning
even when it’s got bad breath;
gotta ride the train in the morning.
Don't worry about where you'll be this afternoon;
that's the conductor's business.
They got your destination in mind.
Leave your baggage behind, though.
Conductor don’t want you cluttering
the train with all your extra baggage;
slowing it down. Conductor said,
ain’t no need to wonder what could’ve been;
what is is what is,
and that's the way we’re gonna be.
Right here; right now; in the here and now.
The past don’t hang around these parts.
And the future? The future is in your bones.
You got your bones; you got your future.
You got the train; you got your transportation.
Now get on board and ride.
The conductor will decide where you’re bound.
Stop standing round with your hands in your pockets,
your head bowed down like you’re ashamed of something.
Be proud.
Sing loud like a train kissing Birmingham good morning,
bad breath and all.

image by Matt Layne

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Matt Layne writes…

Back in 1995, I lived a few blocks east and beneath the statue of Vulcan, nestled in a cut of Red Mountain and overlooking the city of Birmingham, Alabama. I loved that apartment. I lived with a handsome Australian poet who biked everywhere, including all the way down to the Gulf Coast. We would stay up late drinking red wine and eating baguettes and butter and dancing and spouting poetry, and everything felt possible.

On Friday nights, we would crowd into Craig Legg's bookstore which was aptly named Books. "Poet on the runway," someone would shout as some poet or another stood on a wood pallet stage and recited whatever they'd been working on that week.

Fertile. It was a fertile creative time, we were all producing so much work, and sometimes all of our work felt connected like a train. Weighted like a train. Freighted like a train. The weighted freight of Birmingham's history pressing us all to do more and reach more people. We talked about having drive-by pop-up poetry readings on a flat-bed truck. We staged wild poetry happenings in local bars and restaurants where we had to holler over the cacophony of improv musicians. We put together Birmingham's first poetry slams. Sometimes a poet or two would end the night naked and running through the streets of Southside.

I had recently acquired a copy of Woody Guthrie's Bones for Glory from the QPB paperback book club, and I fell in love with his writing. That book felt alive to me, Woody's prose put me on the train with him riding from Oklahoma to California to Texas. My friend, Matt Beckman, was one of those infamous Kevorkian Skull Poets, and one night he introduced me to his brother Dan. Dan was a certified card carrying hobo riding the rails around the country. What the what? Were we even allowed to do that in the 90s?

I have always loved trains. I had a Lionel train set as a kid, and I can smell that burning electric battery smell of it even now. Years later, I would move into an old house not more than 60 feet from the railroad tracks over near the titular Whistlestop Cafe. Went there for lunch just last week, but I do digress.

At night, as I lay in my apartment looking over the city, I could hear that train rolling through Birmingham, and as I mentioned earlier, we were prone to drinking red wine and dancing our way through the night, so it was not unusual for me to hear the sound of the 5 am train rolling through Birmingham, steel wheels popping against iron tracks, and when I did, when I did, I wanted to rise from that half-sleep and move my like Woody would ...

Well, what would you do?

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“Bones for Glory” appears in Miracle Strip, released August 31, 2022.

Miracle Strip, a poetry collection by Matt Layne, is a unique hybrid of the written and spoken word. Each piece of the collection has an end-stop embellishment QR code which, when scanned, transforms the reader into a listener. Layne has recorded each poem, often with the accompaniment of musician and poet, Ned Mudd. The first line of the book invites the reader to “tell me your story, and I will tell you mine,” in the campfire tradition. In Miracle Strip, the reader and poet embark on an experiential journey of memories and the ghosts who haunt us.

Miracle Strip by Matt Layne is in print! Get your copy today!

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Poet, librarian, raconteur; Matt Layne has been poking hornet's nests and looking under rocks for lizards and snakes since he was knee-high to a peanut peg. His debut multimedia poetry collection, Miracle Strip, had been awarded the 2025 Alabama Author Award for Poetry and was named the 2024 Book of the Year by the Alabama State Poetry Society. Order your copy today.

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