"boxcar" poems
I march to a different drummer
My life it is my own
I'm an explorer of experience
That is how I'm known
I've seen snow in South Dakota
I've been on the Vegas strip
Had barbeque in Kansas
My life has been a trip
I'm a gypsy of the railways
I'm a legend in my time
I move on in a boxcar
Brother... spare a dime?
I've been through all the landlocked states
Five provinces as well
I've seen Niagara Falls all frozen
I've seen it flowing fast as well
I've had margaritas in Key West
And Bourbon in Kentucky
Craft beers out in Oregon
In my life I have been lucky
I travel on my stories
Feed myself with all my tales
I'm an explorer of experience
I'm a gypsy of the rails
I never stick around too long
I don't wear my welcome out
I come and see just what I want
That's what life is all about
I've railroad friends in Texas
Some up in BC too
We've shared drinks in San Diego
And had a great Alaskan brew
I'm not one to live by your rules
I find my rules suit me fine
I'm an explorer of experience
And I'm riding on the lines
You can find me down in Georgia
Or eating spuds in Idaho
I never know just where I'll be
Until my ride begins to go
I'm a gypsy of the railways
I'm a legend in my time
I move on in a boxcar
Brother...spare a dime?
Feb 21, 2014
Feb 21, 2014 at 12:12 PM UTC
We spread our blanket on uneven
ground, bodies embracing in descent,
They lay on the boxcar floor,
fingers twisted, clutching slats.
Transfixed by the spell of evening,
limbs entwined, interlaced,
Barbed wire punctured palms
faces creased as in old photographs.
We stretched in dawn’s light,
poured coffee out of cups,
and left as it merged with the dust.
Bones upheave ground
unsheathed fingers
clotted with soil.
Copyright © 2003 Gary Brocks
Aug 28, 2018
Aug 28, 2018 at 9:45 PM UTC
the tick in the clock
the chatter of an ignition
dishes clanking
Mr. Everywhere
nowhere to be seen
the lungs don't show the lifetime spent escaping
times are cold
but it's too hot in the kitchen
make me a transient drifter
with a handkerchief on a stick
eating an apple
in a boxcar making it's way through cold night
make me disappear a wrangler
an outlaw
delete my typos
and move me to the recycling bin
Nov 8, 2013
Nov 8, 2013 at 10:15 PM UTC
Drawing things I cannot see,
Listening,
Keenly,
Too the strange things,
Coming from,
the albino dressed pavement smoothed,
Bedroom walls,
Braille textures,
slipping like termites,
or a strange smell,
dancing from the dusty old lady haired vent,
on the ceiling,
Braille raindrops,
escaping from your,
soul window sill,
fog,
gets in the room,
and we light cigarettes,
purple scented totem poled candles,
with out near future,
melting,
and dripping on the wooden counter-top,
which we dip our fingers into,
sticky like petroleum,
sticky like the sap from a forest broken snapped,
tree limb,
which we tasted,
which we ran danced hollered and orgasmed,
like the melting candle,
like the sapped,
broken kansas public tree limb,
and i,
took off your,
orange dress that you stole,
though only a few dollars,
i called bonnie,
you called me paradise,
though we danced gleefully,
in the slums snout snarling broken home windows,
pot-holes,untied shoes,untied fathers,lovers planning paradise,
inside the blue 80's oldsmobile,
with the stereo turned low,
low like the quiet hummingbird song,
of making love,
in the cold night,
under trees,
that was old,
and had probably seen many lovers,
come and go,
as its Fall leaves grew wings,
as its,
winters balding scalp,
scattered away,
like a field of dandelions,
or the birds,
that flew from nests,
only to fly south,
or like wise boxcar boxcar dharma bums,
sat on telephone wires,
at the intersection,
where two lovers planned paradise,
in the back-seat,
of a blue Oldsmobile,
and the night,
holy night,
and i,
**** mind wonderer without wings,
or sad singer leather boots harmonica whiskey drinker,
and Her,
white as stars,
dancing in a blind choreographed orchestra,
in the sky,
far,
far,
far,
even the highway,
has no exits,
to see this performance,
So i sit on a rock,
smoking a cigarette,
with a Fools smile,
as I,
watch beauty,
from the Key-hole,
that is,
Solitude.
Feb 5, 2013
Feb 5, 2013 at 8:09 PM UTC
Well, Gypsy Guy would rather die than hunker down in chains,
be ridden south with bit in mouth, or heed the hold of reins.
The ruling lot are in a spot, the boss man he complains:
“The gypsies’ soul, I can’t control, my patience wears and wanes;
they will not cede to common greed, which conquers far domains
and furtive spies and news that lies have barely baked their brains.
“But in the court of last resort the final fix remains:
in boxcar bins with violins we’ll freight them out in trains
(should one ask why, a quick reply: ‘It’s that which God ordains!’),
and in the bogs, they’ll die like dogs, and everybody gains.”
Jul 17, 2013
Jul 17, 2013 at 3:06 PM UTC
Let's talk about this jazz club
that lives in my cellphone
in 1950 something with Chet Baker
back from the dead.
Let's toast to random notes taking flight
into the city in the middle of nothing nights we've known or been familiar with.
Let's shake hands cordially with the unfamiliar as in "deal", or "peace be with you" as if in church, tipping hats at that stranger passing by at the crosswalk some late evening in spring alongside dandelions sprouting forth from the pavement. Let's read between breaks of beats Kerouac must have hit in 1950 something San Francisco in yelps into the moonlit stages of the balcony of his boxcar boxcar boxcar gone by in a mad blur with whatever graffiti'd message of hope it bore on its sides. Let's hitch into the unknowingly infinite by way of the pen's mighty point. Let's unlearn the way syllable by syllable and demolish languaged signs like hurricane force candor blowing down fact-ory made terms and political decorum as smoke from the pages of their corporate handbook joins the Chet Baker solo note pilgrmage into the holy skyline. Let's move side by side unspoken as those jazz notes he forgot to play. Let's fill in those blanks with uninformed confidence beyond our abilities and grasp the unsayable names of our dreams remmebered. Let's see in seconds passing like bums inebriated with the holy moments gone too soon. Let's talk about nothing but this sacred second at hand on this clock unseen pointing overhead to the face of the moon gone full and hungry for attention. Let this happen only now. Only then will we talk about where it's going.
Apr 14, 2018
Apr 14, 2018 at 12:44 AM UTC
The gypsy hymns and railway trails
which you followed into the valley of your trials
Lady Luck brought you enough street child wisdom and thief given kindness
to turn the tracks around and the train whistle to wake me.
Desert saint of your weathered ways
with your thin wrists and moon gleaming lips
Hope to you was like a blinding sunrise, painful to acknowledge, yet sorely lacking without
Never could be without your Larkspur boquets and marigold wreaths
August heat heavy with the scent of cypress trees
Apollo of the dusty sea, flooded the cliffs with light like withering flames
born from boxcar visions and a desperate hunger for that windblown hallelujah we chased down the starlit trestles like missionaries. Summoned from our streetcar medallions, vagabond nymphs, rumbling through moth-eaten states and barren dusks, lazy moon gazing upon our dolorous times and wild days and all our rough and rowdy ways.
No need to heed the judgements of the stars.
With the arid land so wild and lonesome- we weave our own muse into the railway line- followed back to when you were my home, and the streets were the laurel crown of your vagrant fortune.
Aug 9, 2020
Aug 9, 2020 at 12:12 PM UTC
I jumped on a freight in Monticello,
Didn't know where it was going - you
Had given up on me, baby -
So, I'd given up on you.
A rumbling song as the train rolled on,
I had plenty-a shine to drink-
I was trying anything I could,
So I wouldn't have to think.
Few and far between
Are the hopes I'll ever have
Of loving someone who's loving me.
I've been taken to pity,
Like surely others have.
All of my dreams
Are few and far between.
I could still remember how
You said you wished that I would leave.
I'm giving you what you wanted.
Something you can believe.
You won't hear from me, anymore.
I know that to you I'm dead.
I won't ever haunt you,
Like your words that won't leave my head.
Few and far between
Are the hopes I'll ever have,
Of loving someone who's loving me.
I've been taken to pity,
Like surely others have.
All of my dreams,
Are few and far between.
The boxcar slowed in the railway yard.
I jump off - the gravel cut up me knee.
I heard them barking, so I took off a'running.
The dogs were closing in on me.
I made it to the Vieux Carr'e
Before the St. Louis clock struck three.
Tell the children I love them.
Or better, tell 'em not to think of me.
Few and far between
Are the hopes I'll ever have,
Of loving someone who's loving me.
I've been taken to pity,
Like surely others have.
All of my dreams,
Are few and far between.
I'll always wish it was different.
I hope you find somebody new,
Hope you find the kids a daddy
Who's good to them and you.
I hope you know that I really tried
To be the man you needed me to be.
I couldn't keep you from happiness,
You couldn't keep me from being me.
Few and far between
Are the hopes I'll ever have,
Of loving someone who's loving me.
I've been taken to pity,
Like surely others have.
All of my dreams,
Are few and far between.
Jul 24, 2015
Jul 24, 2015 at 6:35 PM UTC
travelin north on rumblin boxcar trains
soft iron rails confess syncopated pains
slow rhythmic rush of spinning paddlewheels
full immersion baptism in Big Muddy swales
feint clip clop thoughts of ol Bess fade fast
hum a hue of delta blues to hard times past
I lift a quiet prayer to my Lord’s willowy ear
to quell the ugly whispers of yonder city fears
Jacob Lawrence
Panel 23
Migration Series
Duke Ellington:
Daybreak Express
Orlando
9/24/17
jbm
Sep 25, 2017
Sep 25, 2017 at 12:30 PM UTC
All estuaries flow eastbound, and the subterranean rail tracks keep forcing against the estuaries’ grain and dust foundations perpendicularly to them.
How can a sane proposition -- a quantification of syntax execution (those squirming cuticles through bonds of regression)— an excessive reflection, reflexive inspection,
Prove its sanity through continued suggestion?
Deductive insurrections stirred in memory,
A rumble, causing sediments to crumble,
Wineglasses balanced atop countertops tumble.
Spilling contents upon the grained wooden, elitists' floors.
"Anesthetic, onsetting tuberculosis in breath patterns,
Gavels ringing on rigged tolling tongs in caverns,
Dark tolerances to Copernican astronomy in shadows,
And the handle grinds as boxcar wheels' flints and steels catch and spark in addled locks," I mumbled from a half-nap.
It was surgery, the smooth procedures on the moving trains,
The gains and plectrums scraped against the brains' spider veins,
To reorganize the sane, to bridge the broken definitions changed,
To prevent arguments' bone structure from fractures and sprains.
"Use gavels against the scalpels, sculpt with their judgment," a corona dream's habitant corrugated.
He pounded the gavel's end against the knife to chisel at the pituitary gland pulsing in his subject,
And her arms flailed like a horse's legs in heat-induced convulsion.
I thought it was done.
The Canson Merue train screamed in the night under earth to Yellowknife to meet Canadian soil as the Heavy Breather pounded his gavel.
Oct 9, 2014
Oct 9, 2014 at 5:06 PM UTC
Such a shame to let loose
That I have absolutely no clue what I'm doing
But pretending seems to work so well;
You all claw at plasticine symbols
The letters deplored with a swish of the ink well.
Calligraphic self destructions mean something to somebody
Over an ocean with eyes so slight as to shine in the darkness,
Glinting in robes of black on the rooftops of rich dynastics
And the rhymes of yesterday creeping to the forefront,
Reminding me just of how hopeless hopelessness is--
The assonance of a retreating boxcar
Is steaming into the backdrops of consciousness.
Is it time to rewind somewhere?
The visages of paintings only mean so much
To the blind bats on cave walls in cavernous reaches
Of static television snow drifts.
It seems that you and I have come to the biggest of filamentous rifts:
Sifting between now and then we have mind-skips
Of epic proportion, a sickened distortion
Of all of the children left in their contortions
It's all leprosy in my eyes
Since the skies are burning down as we pinpoint abortion.
And we release that defeat, and try to find meaning in it all:
A lie of great size
Told from my lips yet it was--
You who believed me.
Together we made a chimera
A deception even worse than anything I've ever known
I said that some god had told me all the things that
that
that--
I can't begin to begin an apology
My mouth mummified by request next to Jeremy Bentham
I only wanted what's best for you--
But look at what you've done!
Oh, Crusades! Oh, Crusades!
Children don't lie with your eyes on the sunset
For Nietzsche is the ultimate navigator!
And you finally catch sight of the top of an alligator
floating in the oil, staring at you
slanted eyes smiling cruel.
It all makes sense now, what half believed lies
That explain how the darkness will come to rise
But the opposite side of our crystalline marble
Has known all along, they knew all along!
Facing the east, wasn't He?
Then even he knew
Perhaps what I said was not all untrue
And in fact
the fault lies with Him
Not me,
Not you.
Sincerely,
The Bible.
Dec 30, 2010
Dec 30, 2010 at 6:09 PM UTC
I don't care who
hears me anymore.
I long to taste the sweet psychobabble,
so I lick my lips
and it drips out,
splattering on
the psychovirgin shoulders
of innocent bystanders.
I shrug. collateraldamage.
The loonybin flies
mumble around my face-
growling with disgust
at injustice and the
moldy, grimy consciences
laughing as they peer out
dusty boxcar windows
as the coaldust and asbestos
poison the vessels to match
the sour wine within.
I stand, marble, cold, alone,
except for sticky padding fly feet
across my lips.
The chill breeze of whispers
and the snowflakes of their
beady possum eyes
fall dead as they hit
my lifeless immortal marble.
The deadgrey stone
awaits with dread and ecstasy
the day of apocalyptic fire
when the Great marble pillars
fall victim to the gravity of all sin,
crushing the grimy greedy Watchers into pulp,
quarry-blasted Michelangelo perfection.
Sacrifice! the end of static immortality.
the flies feast on the charred and vacant carnage
Jul 11, 2012
Jul 11, 2012 at 5:49 PM UTC
Pale blue gray
colored her eyes
As a soft feeling
starts coming back again
But like with
every rule
Of this, the longest of roads to
travel
It can never, completely
bring back
that lost
loving feelin'
Oh,
That would just be another left
and let to cross over
that one, forbidden
white line
But don't you want that revenge
on getting even with that
warning sign?
as here it comes again to not better
your remaining
days
And tie you once again to that
Boxcar laden, one way track
that disallows you
from ever coming back
Or
to feel...
and only leaves you to try and steal
This, the bunting red
that you will try to pretend
is what you can never
really see
Ooh. that true color of
that everlasting love
that can no longer
help you up
or set you free...
Dec 6, 2012
Dec 6, 2012 at 11:38 PM UTC
A cardboard box some building blocks
some scissors and some string
four paper plates two Apple crates
a frizbe and a spring
A roll of tape a sheet of crepe
Some paint pots and a brush
five lolly sticks eight lego bricks
quick Ted we have to rush
Pram wheels four maybe one more
***** driver and some screws
A saw some wood there that looks good
With this we cannot lose
place two wheels square right under there
and ***** the screws in tight
Now same again that's done now then
let's fit the seat alright
The Apple crate will look so great
when painted red and green
The box cockpit is where we'll sit
and steer this wild machine
Add blocks and bricks and Lolly sticks
to make my dashboard bright
spare wheel on back now all we lack
are fireflies for our light
Jam jar ******* tight that looks alright
now place them there just so
what's that you said dear mister Ted
you want to have a go
The boxcar race is taking place
so we will have to run
I'll pull you steer were oh so near
to having so much fun
The starting line now grip the line
as dad gives us a push
We're building speed taking the lead
as past them all we whoosh
The end in sight Ted please hold tight
and please don't move about
Ten yards now nine we're doing fine
eight seven six... look out
FIVE more to go let's start to slow
the wheels with the brake
what's that you said dear mister Ted
we've made a big mistake
No brakes oh no two yards to go
and then the three bar gate
but wait just look it's off the hook
and open wide... oh great
1 yard we won the race is run
and yet we still race on
past in a flash we end up SPLASH
Stuck in the village pond
We may be wet but don't forget
we won a victory
For Daddy said that me and Ted
could have a winners tea
So party cake till bellies ache
and then it's time for bed
From bits of trash we made a splash
me and my best friend Ted
Sep 27, 2013
Sep 27, 2013 at 3:38 PM UTC
O humanity, thou hath made the foul mouth a normalcy to men to talk to their Queen's, to calleth them slave word's, as if these women art unseen.
O humanity, thou telleth mankind that disgust in magazine's is OK, whilst little boy's calleth little girl's ***** and ****** making thine action's to the devil's way.
O humanity, thou selleth guns and bomb's to eachother, worship dollar Bill's with little faces on them that **** as the green paper's art of greed as so many DIETH for.
O the humanity; thou giveth death by the million's, population control through weather, and war's, thou Selleth blood diamond's, and trade *** to rich men from young girl's.
O humanity, lover's of thineself, don't helpeth noone else, the mall is thine luxury, thy lonesome room is seducing to thee, snorting lines to escape what's to cometh from the sky's.
O mankind, the trumpet's art about to be blown, thou art marrying with other's? And their soul's thou doth not knoweth? Thou giveth charity to nonsense? Yet none to God?
O mankind, none more class, none more slow, everything's fast, driving new age Boxcar's to rusheth to work, to put ten pennies in thy tanks? And thou doth not protest the killing and blood squirt?
O mankind, taketh and receiveth? None giving, noone thou needeth? Thou hath given all the time in the world to thy paperwork, yet none for thy lover's, family, or friend's.
O THE HUMANITY, O THE HUMANITY!!!!!!!!
©Brandon nagley
©Lonesome poets poetry
Aug 3, 2015
Aug 3, 2015 at 8:00 PM UTC
. . . . .s s s s s s s s s s s s s s . . . .
Choo . . . s s s s s s s s s s s s . . . .
Choo Choo s s s s s s s s s s . . . .
Choo s s s Choo s s s
Choo s s Choo s Choo Choo
Choo Choo Choo Choo
My tain is moving . . .
My freight train now of love
Chu , Chu , Chu , Chu , Chu
My momentum is gaining
Must make the grade above
Chou-a-Chou , a-Chu
Keep your eyes looking up ahead
On the rail and where's it lead
My train has many cars
Hauling loads so very far
Boxcar loads of lumber sure
For building house of love so pure
Tank cars full of liquid love
Higher and higher I do shove
Flatbeds strapped under cover too
Leaves you guessing what will I do
Load after load of dump cars full
All these I bring to you to tool
The way is curved and rail runs straight
As I pass through your open gate
The boiler is hot the fire is stoked
There's no way now this motion choke
There's miles and miles of shiny rail
Laid down by your smiles , can tell
Following up here comes the caboose
As my train is cut and loose
Pressing hard must be on time
To here you say it's so fine
So there goes my Loco train of love
Delivering loads of love I flood
Whoo - whoo
Jan 19, 2015
Jan 19, 2015 at 4:34 AM UTC
I know how
Dark it Is
For you right now
You're in hell
And the only
Way out is
Through a long
Dark tunnel
And you're afraid
To go in
Because there's
A train coming
At you carrying
A boxcar
Full of heartbreak
And all you
Can do is
Let it
Hit you
Nov 30, 2021
Nov 30, 2021 at 1:15 AM UTC
I feel like a folded symbol,
inside the chipped-cherry boxcar
that is my damp, June mind.
A fetus seizing in the womb,
hooked up like a cheap monitor.
A foreign strandedness, wrapped
by a boa of dark country back roads
and sterile air skipping across grass.
If I stop, If I sleep
the sweat seeps from my pores
like a sterling grey squad,
oxidizing in the fog,
swimming around headspace,
guns melting with claymation cheeks,
howls into the night, darling deadbirds.
I am now happy and remember
only other happy memories.
Over a decade of depression
and now this.
I feel unfinished, unwanted
by the quickness of life.
I feel like a grain
caught in a gust so swift,
I may never adjust.
I, the empty-headed boy,
causing jet-black glass
to appear on sand,
to remove my footprints,
and incase them, phantoms.
Jun 15, 2016
Jun 15, 2016 at 10:49 PM UTC
I was dreaming lucky
But woke up cold in hand;
I dreamed I had a dollar
But woke up cold in hand.
Woke up this morning
Feel around for my shoes.
You know about that?
They took yours too?
Sometimes I feel
Like walkin'.
Sometimes I feel
Like cryin'.
Sometimes I feel
Like a motherless child.
Sometimes I feel
Like I ain't no one at all.
Say brother,
I can't make change
For a nickle.
Say sister, oh sister,
Can you spare me
One thin dime?
"When a man gets the blues
He grabs a train and rides."
I know
I ain't no man.
"When a woman gets the blues
She hangs her head and cries."
I know
I don't feel
Like no woman.
So when I get me back
My walkin' shoes,
Those worn out, old walkin' shoes,
I'm takin' this suitcase
Full of blues I got
And ride the boxcar blinds
Past Boogie Street
All the way to
Johnson's Crossroads.
Lines in Quotations are direct from Train Whistle Blues by Jimmie Rodgers, 1929
Sep 29, 2013
Sep 29, 2013 at 3:24 PM UTC
I wore a gold Star.
I bear a tattoo.
When Six Million died
I was one of the few,
Through the mercy of God
or the missed chance of Fate,
I escaped from the boxcar
into winter’s dim light.
My parents and sister,
Long are dust on the wind.
Their faith and their race
were their only known sins
Now, though stooped and arthritic,
I still testify
To the bitter cup tasted
when the Six Million died.
(An elderly docent at the Shoah Center recalls his brush with death at the hands of the Gestapo)
Dec 14, 2013
Dec 14, 2013 at 11:33 AM UTC
On December 16, 2013, in my work titled "Thank You", was the first time I used the term "Poet's Train" for all of the contributors to the HP site. For that is exactly what it is. It also reminds me of times that have passed.
My grandparents lived in Joshua, Texas, a small town not far from the city of Fort Worth. Their house was only about 100 yards, or less, from the railroad tracks. Every evening around six o'clock we would hear the faint moan of the first whistle. My brother and me, both little tykes(6-10), would run to the back porch, anticipating the subsequent whistles from a huge piece of machinery. As the whistle grew louder, we could see the column of smoke billowing from the coal-burning engine as it neared. All of a sudden, there it was. We weren't the only ones that stood and watched, for there is something magical about trains, that attract both young, and old.
Our biggest delight however, did not lie with the train itself, but waving to the passengers and engineers as it passed, seeing them wave back, blowing that whistle in gentle acknowledgement, as if saying, "Good to see you, thanks for coming, have a great day!"
So it is with the "Poet's Train." When a piece is posted the whistle blows, each piece becomes a boxcar. Each writer, a passenger; their computer, the engine, and every reader waving as it passes. Its length, infinite, with no caboose. It will come the next day, the next night, with new passengers, with new cargo. I love it. I really do!
copyright: richard riddle, December 19, 2014
Dec 19, 2014
Dec 19, 2014 at 6:47 PM UTC
Take my ashtrays
and throw them in the street
where the ratty, shirtless children play,
sure
go ahead
drop my keys down storm drains
never to be seen again
when the skies all open up
and the rain pours out of them
it will be like you
showering me in your glances
from the other side of the desk
this train has no known destination
and I can’t make out the turns from drops
but I do know that we’ve been off track
for a few miles now
and that this boxcar is dark and dusty
no breathing room to light a fire
no time for the canned food
holy **** I am really lost
China st is closing in all around me
and I could have sworn I’ve seen these houses before
phantoms from some long lost dream
teasing the fringes of my memory
this necklace sitting on my desk
amid the ash and dust and ink and carvings
is my favorite thing I don’t own
my tongue is the frayed leash
which allows my mind to wander
off on infinite miles in every direction
My heart is a drum
sitting in the back corner
of a garage sale
and my words and my cigarettes have a lot in common
because inevitably
I just end up
blowing smoke
Jul 8, 2014
Jul 8, 2014 at 10:47 AM UTC
When I was 17,
the wreckage
of my home
smoldering
a hundred miles east
of my degenerate
disposition,
I worked
the carnival,
bathed in iridescent light,
kicking the crap
out of time with
my alligator boots,
spinning carousel stories,
exhaling cigarette smoke
in circles above the perfumed
heads of carnal housewives,
the calliope music
swirling endlessly,
a loop of depot kisses
and whiskey lust,
my leather gloves
softened by torn
ticket stubs and
legerdemain.
Beneath big top canvas,
the lonesome doves
of my past tangled
with boxcar bandits
and funhouse shades.
I set the clowns aflame.
On taught ropes
of reckoning,
I tilt-a-whirled
toward evening’s
inexorable blade.
Oct 7, 2016
Oct 7, 2016 at 5:05 PM UTC
Originally written and posted in December, 2014, I like to re-post it occasionally for all the new writers, poets, essayists, and, of course, any new 'readers'.
On December 16, 2013, in my work titled "Thank You", was the first time I used the term "Poet's Train" for all of the contributors to the HP site. For that is exactly what it is. It also reminds me of times that have passed.
My grandparents lived in Joshua, Texas, a small town not far from the city of Fort Worth. Their house was only about 100 yards, or less, from the railroad tracks. Every evening around six o'clock we would hear the faint moan of the first whistle. My brother and me, both little tykes(6-10), would run to the back porch, anticipating the subsequent whistles from a huge piece of machinery. As the whistle grew louder, we could see the column of smoke billowing from the coal-burning engine as it neared. All of a sudden, there it was. We weren't the only ones that stood and watched, for there is something magical about trains, that attract both young, and old.
Our biggest delight however, did not lie with the train itself, but waving to the passengers and engineers as it passed, seeing them wave back, blowing that whistle in gentle acknowledgement, as if saying, "Good to see you, thanks for coming, have a great day!"
So it is with the "Poet's Train." When a piece is posted the whistle blows, each piece becomes a boxcar. Each writer, a passenger; their computer, the engine, and every reader waving as it passes. Its length, infinite, with no caboose. It will come the next day, the next night, with new passengers, with new cargo. I love it. I really do!
copyright: richard riddle, December 19, 2014
Nov 22, 2015
Nov 22, 2015 at 10:33 PM UTC