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The Conductor (Expanded Street Poem)


Nothing left in this old town,
I felt I didn’t have much choice—
I jumped aboard a westbound freight,
And that’s when I heard the voice…

“Boy, this here is my car,
You keep the rules, and you'll be fine.
I don’t know you, you don’t know me,
But boy, this car is mine.”

His words clanged like a coupler
When it locks and seals a train,
Rusted through with gravel breath
And notes of soot and rain.

I squinted in the darkness,
Tried to track where the sound came from.
That voice curled 'round the boxcar walls
Like smoke from burning ***.

I asked him where he came from—
He paused before he said,
“Everywhere and Nowhere...
And right now? From just ahead.”

“Now boy, keep your distance,
Keep quiet, leave me be.
I don’t like conversation—
You keep to you, and I to me.”

Just then the train car shifted—
That shudder, steel and soul—
“Them rails are singing, boy,” he said,
“That's the rhythm taking hold.”

“That’s the final shunt you’re hearing,
The coupler’s hymn of fate.
You’re safe now, tucked in iron walls—
No rail man's hand to chase.”

He leaned into the stillness,
Said, “That sound? It starts the song.
The music of the boxcar life—
The world is movin’ on.”

“You see while cars sit stagnant,
While they’re frozen still in place,
The rail men do their hunting—
And we hobo’s learn to brace.”

“But when that coupler snaps, my friend,
That’s when it’s time to dream—
A thousand miles of nowhere
With no promise but the steam.”

I asked him what he meant by that,
He said, “You’ll learn in time.
Just ride the rails and listen, boy—
There’s truth in every line.”