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
Categories:
freight train, analogy, beautiful, forgiveness, imagery,
Form: Free verse
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.
Categories:
freight train, loneliness, night,
Form: Free verse
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.
Categories:
freight train, journey, silence, solitude, sound,
Form: Free verse
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
Categories:
freight train, life,
Form: Sonnet
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
Categories:
freight train, death, life, travel,
Form: Couplet
Box cars a mile long, rolling all night headed West
Some full, some empty, all singing the same old song
A Cadillac for The King Of The Road
Categories:
freight train, life
Form: I do not know?