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Transcontinental

The construction of the railroad in rhyme

By Christopher HeraldPublished 2 years ago 1 min read
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Transcontinental
Photo by Tom Barrett on Unsplash

It was at least six months by land

200 days to sail around

Where 30,000,000 buffalo

used to trample the virgin ground

It was 18 hundred 65

when Abe Lincoln signed his Hancock

The transcontinental railroad

would improve distance versus clock

Should we harken back to Donner

Remember George and his brother???

20,000 more had perished

along one trail or another

Now veterans and immigrants

and laborers like you and I

Hammered in each piece one by one

so the choo choo train can go by

Exaggerating some corners

and milking the geography

These men were paid in acreage

a little more through dishonesty

Working each angle for profit

no different than they’d do today

It took quite a few hammer swings

just to lay that cowboy’s freeway

Theodore Judah took the reigns

across our favorite mountain range

The old Sierra Nevadas

again can take the center stage

7,500 feet up there

and a bitch almost half the year

The iron cuts right through the rock

which risks many asian man’s rear

It was cheaper to import grunts

and dynamite is unstable

Than collect American men

who were not as expendable

The progress sometimes inches a day

and many, many workers died

Just preparing for safe passage

where the rest of mankind can ride

The day came when they’d conquer

and speed up to six miles a day

Link by link and each railroad tie

Heading toward Utah anyway

On May 10th 1869

our first train track had been complete

The journey is cut to six days

some years before pouring concrete

surreal poetry
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