Freight Poems | Examples

The Calico Box Crab Freight

I was only eight
when I caught the calico box crab freight. 
Just a small-town crab-boy in tattered britches,
I found my way to fame and riches, 
loaded in a crate.

On the Body's Decision to Become a Freight Elevator

I didn't fill out any paperwork.
There was no memo, no consent form.
Just a nameless morning when the mirror refused
to acknowledge anything above my collarbone. 

After that, people entered me carrying grief
in cardboard boxes. Pressed buttons
for floors that didn't exist. 

A man from 4D requested the roof, 
as if it were still an option. 
On Thursday, a child in a yellow parka 
whispered a song
I recognized from my sleep paralysis years. 
It all arrived sticky and wrong
though I tried to hum along, 
my cables winced. 

By Sunday I was hosting more 
than traffic. Something moved
inside the machinery, something
older than ballast or balance,
and it wouldn't stop licking the grease
from its own teeth. 

It told me to smile more. 
I jammed the doors.

hummingbird—
someone's mouth
in my throat

The Neverending Freight Train

My father explained it to me this way
“It was like getting on a freight train. There was no getting off,”
Those are the words he used when discussing commitment to my mother you see
I tried to get off the train, but I couldn’t get off
The love and the safety that I felt from your presence was so much better than
The world outside of what we had built which was cold and cruel
We cried, fought, and talked and talked
Yet I still could not get off
How could I get off the train?
The train that we had so carefully crafted together
The train that we had built with our own hands
I simply could not get off
I simply cannot get off
And we will still fight
And we will still cry
We will have problems that have no reason as to why
And I don’t know about you
But I never want to get off

Hopping a Freight Train in Wheeling

The freight train puffs a veil of smoke into the night.
The iron rails rumble.
Be still.
Now.
There it is, the engine's call, fading
To the distance.
Between shadows, a lean figure grips tight to the rolling steel,
His pack worn low on his back, and now he's gone
Wholly, into the night.
I stand alone by the coal yard, I do not dare speak
Or move.
I listen.
The train bends away into its own darkness,
And I lean toward mine.

Writer from Within

The less
I move my lips at my 4:00 am Saturday morning sessions
The more
These words are trees standing still beside a racing river

A long way away
Freight train bores the night
Moon without light

Its alto horn
Projects from nowhere entangles everywhere

Uninhibited
By barren maples and icy roads
Abandoned homes and snowdrifts
A shadow walking his dog under planets of street lights
All powerless against the elk’s forlorn cry

The long sigh reaches me in my living room
Like a rope
Or an armored snake
That takes its slithering life with such mangled ease

Iron bolts
Shackles jolt and shudder to the lumber spindles

I have no name but I am story

Clack clack
Clack clack
Clack clack

I count the halved steps of thunder from the mysterious miles
Waning afar

As the Rolling Stones once sang Love is like our music
It’s here and then it’s gone

I am magician
Make things appear and disappear
Conjure things to move
Erase the past and future with Bastami’s ink baton

I am startled back to life

Perfect quiet

Train absent if it ever was.

The Freight-Train of Time

The freight train of time,
speeding through the years.
Hold on for dear life,
shifting through the gears.

The landscape rolls on,
under a blue sky.
A breath-taking view,
brings tears to the eye.

Loved ones jumping off,
taking hearts along.
With no fare thee well,
Just up and then gone.

This train going where?
Come on if you dare!

date:1/31/22

The Freight Train

Countrymen! Sleep! There's no train here
Condemned as we are, who to fear?

Consider crushed stones the rose bed,
Tracks are soft pillows, place your head.

Haven't we had many thorns in life?
Have we failed to face any strife?

Like peaceful children, hence, they slept,
Although their souls within them wept.

Wherefrom, like fate, that train appear?
Our deadly tired bodies to tear!

That our so far held breaths to take,
And out of us mere corpses to make!

We know they'll now investigate,
Brain from reasons to separate!

'O poor dear countrymen!' they'll say,
'Yet why did you choose the train's way?'

Thus ends, lo, our life-long labor,
A prey to a lifeless monster!


“At least 16 migrant laborers were killed early on Friday after a cargo train ran over them in Maharashtra’s Aurangabad district”

30 May 2021
ALL YOURS (May 29) Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Brian Strand

When We Will Fight Freight

When We Will Fight Freight

We always knew when we will fight,
With our fears  full of much freight;
Amount endure,
Are never sure,
And would do with all of our might.

Jim Horn

Freight Trains and Wine

I tried to sleep, but the trip is long
Now far from home where things went so wrong
This whole train now I call mine
My boxcar upon the line
Bottle of wine, a cork and a song

11-22-19
Contest: Five Word Challenge
Sponsor: Beth Evans

Unclaimed Freight

UNCLAIMED FREIGHT

I offered myself to you - Rejected many for you, made myself
Exclusively yours - You never understood that I was not here
To endure jealousy, hate or envy –
Only to serve you and teach you how to include instead of excluding...
You looked over and under but never really looked at me.
Patted my head most appeasingly.

I felt like the puppy with eyes waiting for that proverbial bone.
Then, when keener eyes saw what you never saw;
Benefited from my earthly presence;
Suddenly like a spoiled child who never
played with his wind-up toy;

Until someone else wound it up he,
Now wanted to claim that toy to be his favorite.
You should have examined me; and found my key…
loved me, and explore my inner workings up close,
Before it was too late to relate...

Another metaphor would be
They valued what you failed to see.
You were blind to see my worth…

You never claimed me for yourself.
Left me sitting on the warehouse shelf
You seemed surprised, they bided high
Because what’s yours is not yours
“If you don't claim it!”!
Unclaimed freight…
“goes to the highest bidder”.

Fantasy and Freight Trains

The spiral staircase made her high heels sing.
 San Francisco's nights treated her that way.
 Sophisticated vacation each Spring -
 Nothing seemed as romantic as the Bay.

 She met him on the wharf one moonlit night-
 Pretended to be one of high fashion.
 Her vacation spent in fantasy flight,
 Wrapped in her dreams and his intense passion.

 From here the City churches pierced the mist
 And foghorns warned of danger in the Bay.
 She would think of the times that they had kissed,
 And not tell him that she was from L.A.

 He opened her laptop, looked under "Freight" -
 He could hop a train almost anywhere.
 Now he could be in Bakersfield by eight.
 He closed it, and, now smiling, crossed the square.


5-10-18 for contest one , nine and sixteen...for Viv Wigley

Haiku Freight

Freight train clattered by

over a tree lined viaduct  ~

golden oriole sings .

Its Freight and Spook Night

as you come home
remember your not along
theye're out there
everywhere
be aware we care
don't just stare
so watch that moon light
its end of month in oct.
its
FREIGHT AND SPOOK
NIGHT

Freight and Boo Night

its like  smoke cloud
that loud
as you hear hum moma crown
and a beat
coming down the street
you see the  bright light
with faces that bit
its
CITY FREIGHT AND
BOO NIGHT

New Freight

When you go about a new light
There is a new freight
It must be helps by a new might

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