Trains

The first train, a smoke puffing monster, ran in India, Moving like a millipede, cautious, yet, no phobia; As though well-chosen astronauts, lucky four guests traveled, In cozy, cool, curtained compartments cautiously castled... Soon, trains - thought of as luxury, prestige, status, and style - Turned to be thrift trips that take travelers so long a mile, A beggar could move in it singing, dancing, and begging; Clowns, jugglers, and vendors easily could make their living... The Indian trains and rails have long-lasting histories, Mass accidents, like puzzles, have remained great mysteries; Derailments, like earthquakes, shake and take the trivial tracks, Direct collisions, like wild-bore hits, tricked by timely cracks... Dangers, unintended, like calamities, die away, Traumas of accidents, into normalcy, bloom someday; Intentional human errors do corrode moral sense, Like Abel, they knock the closed castles of human conscience... A great train-trauma the times of nation never forgets, Like horrible nightmares, innocent hearts got terrorized; Is the partition-time human life slaughter, like cattle, Sending them in blood pools by trains, like dead in the battle... Then the religious bitterness in the form of riot, Murdering, blazing - young, old, women and children - quiet; Singing, dancing - like the god of death - around dead bodies, Joyous, on the death of humanity, like dry poppies… Common human beings here, like animals, do not care, Many trains - as late as twelve hours, daily - all through the year; Deaths and murders - like sunrise and set - if trains often bear, Doesn't the goal of the invention of trains seem sheer sneer? 13 October 2021 Railroads, A Historical Glance Back Poetry Contest Sponsored by: BJ Legros Kelley