Trains

trains - by Kasey Martin

            Descend into time, down into this place of fury and darkness.  Deliver me from thoughts of evil, from the tragedies of this place. . .

            The trains run on time here, for the most part.  The silver streaks split the air and silence with their own quiet rush and searching lights.  People pile on at their predetermined stops and carry themselves to the rear of the trains, or line the sides.  Anything to stay away from the front, the middle, and all the places attention comes to bear.  Some are swift enough not to be seen; others meander about in the middle, or towards the front in the hypnotic and dizzying light and are quickly taken away.  Like a buzz in the back of your mind.  Like that quiet hum you hear when you’re exhausted and too tired to think, but know you’ve forgotten yourself; so is the sound as the people vanish. 

            Only their watches remain.  Where they are going time must not mean a thing.  From the back and pressing sides, sounds are heard; murmurings much like that which was heard in those days before the trains.  Sounds from the outside, but dulled here and somehow different.  Again, like you might hear in a dream, but there is no joy found in them and most passengers rush from the sounds to the front or middle and they, like so many before them, are taken away.  Slowly, like the time spent waking from a long night’s rest, the train comes to its quiet halt.  Those remaining seem to wait with a mixture of hope and fear, and as they sit the roof of the train suddenly recedes with the light becoming more blinding and relentless as it engulfs all the passengers who remain.  Like a long canyon fire the train is consumed and we all awake amidst dizzying heights minds have yet to conceive.  There the voice is finally heard from the all but blinding light and slow perception comes as we all begin to see what we would swear was never there before and we begin to forget the days and the time and the trains.

This poem was sent to me by Kasey Martin a wonderful poet here at Asbury. What do you think about how he uses time as a metaphor?

Comments

[jeana clark]

this feels like it would be a great spoken word piece.. i can hear it, feel it, see it in my head. it seems to be a eulogy to control..

[Kasey Martin]

Is it egotistical for me to respond to my own poem? I just thought some clarification might help. This didn't begin as a poem (in fact, I'm not sure you could call it such, maybe poetic prose) but as a short story. Actually, I'd still like to adapt it to film, but that's getting ahead of myself. As far as what it's about, well, let's just say I was frustrated with the whole denominationalizing (not sure that's a word) of the church at the time I wrote it.