Just a minute left before I should pinball out of my building doors
and speed over past the new high riser,
gust of wind pushing against my little body,
tiny amongst these buildings going up.
My eyes switch between the time and the streets,
My feet fall soft and I’m safe.
The trains not here yet and then it is,
and then I sit and I rip my book out of
my lunch bag, ticket tucked under my bookmark
In case the conductor don’t see me
I’ve been reading about the golden state killer.
Rye’s a five minute warning and then
I’m speeding out of another door down
the stairs past the elderly,
across one of the many ****** Port Chester
streets difficult to cross but I’m walking
my legs dart fast past the head shop and the bread shop
and my nose is filled with sweet and sour.
I walk faster- avoiding the CEO
he rides the same train and I don’t want to talk.
So I march forward and don’t look back.
I get closer and mentally flip off the line of five short men
catcalling me in Spanish, all the while peeking in to the brisa marina window
to see if there’s anything my herbivorous mouth could swallow,
but i don’t break my stride.
They’re practically a butcher anyway.
I climb the stairs to the entrance, stepping beyond the dead baby bird carcass
I was hoping some other animal would consume yesterday
and the avocado shell that would have been good to bury it with.
I try to shake the thought of impending doom as I swipe myself in
Still going as fast as i can so that I don’t have to hold the door open for the CEO
Call me petty, but I do enough of his bidding on a day to day
And I ascend to age 5 years for 10 hours.
And then I run home just to do it all over again the next morning.

Tired eyes carried the bags that sank
Descending on ones features,
All heavy and rounded,
Two moons once full became born
Anew.

I sit by the window of my train,
There's a sweet lullaby of screaming kids,
They keep me awake.
I look out, not stargazing, not seeing,
Unaware of what to look

There is one constant though, through the shifting scence.
The sway remains constant,
it keeps moving, all through the way.

Sweet enough to sway this dear train, she tried rocking me to sleep.
Failed to however lure me into sweet clutches of slumber.

Thus passed one other long trip where the surroundings smudged and smeared like memories from a summer dream.

Fingers on the rails can feel
The pulse of steel and diesel engines,
The muscle and sinew of a continent.
Ten thousand horses throb the air
And bear down on a mile of freight.
It rolls by like thunder
Under a clear blue sky, stirs the soul
With memories of lonely whistles
In the night, a desert wind, mystery lights;
When little fingers at the open window
First felt the pulse of steel and diesel,
A few million miles ago.

Imagine your life as a train –
Endless road and no more unbearable pain.
Now you are passenger, put troubles behind,
That actually twist your brilliant mind.

Landscape by landscape, sunset by sunset,
“Freedom is here!” you cheerfully said.
Others might think you must be insane
“How dare he exist unlike a last soul in the rain?”

Stay focused and do not be absorbed
By spoiled people whose troubles were not even solved.
Take reality easy, follow these words,
Now they are would be my final chords.

When my sister sits on the train
She loves people watching
And she watches the murals go by
Like sunsets and rises
Of new days
My sister does not dwell on the tracks
When we walk to the train.
They terrify her
She runs past them,
She is anxious and evening and morning.
The train is a path to the next day
I have never seen someone dwell
On the train tracks
Waiting for a train to come
To dissolve the path to the next day
And leave them dead
But I wonder
If that one who passed yesterday
Was once terrified of train tracks
And if they ever rode the train
Before there were murals
On a path to the next day.

...every morning, great is Thy faithfulness."  (Lam 3:22-23)



(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCCXXXVII)


O hark now as the train's voice rumbles! Pale
Night else is dead asleep til ah, from hence
That warning whistle pierces through suspense;
And I just listen, rolling to avail
Those words across my silent tongue to scale,
Half seeing that mighty being which passes thence
As wont through woods none save the beasts fr'intents
Troll, wondring dimly over which detail?
Ha, I dunno.  Like, since I canna stir
Good slumber now, should I erm, rise and *****
That effort, to ink down this thought?  Tis poor.
Thus roll oer and exhale.  If morn debut
Sans fanfare, say a chance to write in tour
Shall yield that note a voice?  And what is new?

28Feb19a