Train song

I walk a long, long way to get on that train

I climb a lot of stairs to get on that train

I elbow my way through strangers piled high

And gentle foreigners hand me sweetly in

And there I am on that train to nowhere

I look around

And I walk right out.

I make up a lot of words to write that poem

I work through a lot of rhythms to write that poem

I cut dreams into diamond-like pieces

And words from all over the city offer themselves

And there I am writing that next-to-last poem

I read it over

And I rip it up.

I wait and watch through a lot of noise for that silence

I cross a lot of highways to follow that silence

I sing out loud to keep it hidden

And I hold hands with strangers to keep it honored

And there I am steeped in the blue silence

And I kiss it and pray it

And then I betray it.

I tell a story and before it's left my lips it's a lie, even though I watched it happen like truth. I sing a song and while my body is still dancing to it the air is shredding it into shrieks. I climb onto a train and it looks straight through me and takes me back, back to the place I was trying to leave.

I find a shape to put things in and then new things come that don't fit. I find a place and a time to sleep and then the daylong ache to rest becomes a frenzy of wakefulness. I find a train, I find a train, another train, and it rocks me into a distance I had forgotten forever.

I find nonsense and it dresses me up for the ball, I find crazy joy in the final corner and it laughs at my preparations. I find my feet under me and I say feet, I don't know who you are or where you came from, but it looks like we are just going to keep on running after silences, jumping on trains, counting out poems. And the feet don't say a thing.