Field

by Tim Leonard

I know that Denver field, the one where the headless homeless heartbroken hoboes, drifters and transients exist, hide and run for their lives behind Union Station. It’s a tricky place at night.

It runs north way up to the stockyards area near the old Coliseum, not to be confused with the one in Rome where they fed you-know-what to you-know-who; where every cold frostbite February cowboys, cowgirls and plain old city folk put on the Stockmans' day extravaganza awarding prizes to animals and the field runs south past the main Post Office Terminal annex and westward toward immigrant hopes and dreams up off Federal Boulevard on a rise with a church and laundromats and renovated upscale posh neighborhoods overlooking gleaming screaming downtown Silver City skyline and the killing field is full of tall weeds in the Platte River flood plain.

There’s a fine view of Rocky Mountains from the field amid random acts of pre-meditated violence around small fires as drifters wait and pray to stay comfortably invisible long enough to ride the rails out of town away from the mean old street.

In the summer children scream on the roller coaster at Elitch Gardens down the street. It used to be up on 38th and Tennyson where my aunt and uncle ran a drugstore then a pharmacy after WWII. They worked their fingers to the bone, sweated their lives out and never asked for much. My aunt was so conditioned by the depression she maintained 37 different envelopes for budgeting their cash flow and checked every penny every night.

It ain’t no field of dreams in that big lost lonely weed choked undeveloped tract of real estate along tracks where freights and Amtrak scenic vista super dome liners blow long lonely whistles as buttoned downed waiters serve blood red Colorado tenderloin down wind from the smell of meat cooking at Coors Field where the boys of summer play hardball.

Tim Leonard, a Vietnam veteran, is a graduate of the University of Oregon. A poet, writer and digital photographer, his work has been published by CREATIVENUE.COM, POETRY SUPERHIGHWAY, STIRRING (V2EI), EBOOKSONTHE.NET, and JOURNAL E. An article and image on El Morro, N.M., will be published by KIDS HIGHWAY.COM in December. Mr. Leonard has extensive international hotel management experience.
Note: Featured author in December 2000
E-mail: tmleonard@earthlink.net
Writing interests: Travel, Children, Poetry, Prose
I.D. Theory articles: "Going North from Santa Fe", "Bali Creativity", "Old Man Hands", "Roof Ball", "Commentary in December", "Sun River", "Leaving Through DIA", "Pawn Takes Pawn", "Elements of Surprise and Laughter", "Field", "Gas is Cheap"
Digital art: "Cutting Fingers," "Error 404 File Not Found," "Scratch," "Remain in the View," "The Orchestra is in the Pits," "National Poetry Month," "Untitled Means Exactly What It Means," "Woman in Thorns," "Royalty Discussing Just Desserts," "Truth Clarity Power Immortality"
Links: Tim's Website