The Buried Train

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1. Saving a Train ‘Twas in the year of 1869, and on the 19th of November, Which the people in Southern Germany will long remember, The great rain-storm which for twenty hours did pour down, That the rivers were overflowed and petty streams all around. The rain fell in such torrents as had never been seen before, That it […]...
2. Train Train. Distant Train. Praise the glorious distance of Train. Dogs bark, reply to the mournful echo of Train’s whistle. Train looks back, keeps moving. Train carries its boxcars of secrets further and further away (and even further still) from those who profess to love Train, but who do not run after him. Eyes brimmed with […]...
3. Rondeau at the Train Stop It bothers me: the genital smell of the bay Drifting toward me on the T stop, the train Circling the city like a dingy, year-round Christmas display. The Puritans were right! Sin Is everywhere in Massachusetts, hell-bound In the population. it bothers me Because it’s summer now and sticky – no rain To cool things […]...
4. In falling Timbers buried In falling Timbers buried There breathed a Man Outside the spades were plying The Lungs within Could He know they sought Him Could They know He breathed Horrid Sand Partition Neither could be heard Never slacked the Diggers But when Spades had done Oh, Reward of Anguish, It was dying Then Many Things are fruitless […]...
5. In Memoriam A. H. H.: Is it, then, regret for buried time Is it, then, regret for buried time That keenlier in sweet April wakes, And meets the year, and gives and takes The colours of the crescent prime? Not all: the songs, the stirring air, The life re-orient out of dust, Cry thro’ the sense to hearten trust In that which made the world so fair. […]...
6. IT RAINED THE DAY THEY BURIED TITO PUENTE It rained the day they buried Tito Puente The eyes of drug dealers following me As I walked through the streets Past shivering prostitutes Women of every sex Young boys full of piss And lampposts like ghosts in the night Past Jimmy the hustler boy With the really big dick Cracked out on the sidewalk […]...
7. Song of a Train A monster taught To come to hand Amain, As swift as thought Across the land The train. The song it sings Has an iron sound; Its iron wings Like wheels go round. Crash under bridges, Flash over ridges, And vault the downs; The road is straight Nor stile, nor gate; For milestones towns! Voluminous, vanishing, […]...
8. Like The Train's Beat Like the train’s beat Swift language flutters the lips Of the Polish airgirl in the corner seat, The swinging and narrowing sun Lights her eyelashes, shapes Her sharp vivacity of bone. Hair, wild and controlled, runs back: And gestures like these English oaks Flash past the windows of her foreign talk. The train runs on […]...
9. In Memoriam A. H. H.: 121. Sad Hesper o'er the buried sun Sad Hesper o’er the buried sun And ready, thou, to die with him, Thou watchest all things ever dim And dimmer, and a glory done: The team is loosen’d from the wain, The boat is drawn upon the shore; Thou listenest to the closing door, And life is darken’d in the brain. Bright Phosphor, fresher […]...
10. The shut-eye train Come, my little one, with me! There are wondrous sights to see As the evening shadows fall; In your pretty cap and gown, Don’t detain The Shut-Eye train – “Ting-a-ling!” the bell it goeth, “Toot-toot!” the whistle bloweth, And we hear the warning call: “All aboard for Shut-Eye Town!” Over hill and over plain Soon […]...
11. On The Night Train Have you seen the bush by moonlight, from the train, go running by? Blackened log and stump and sapling, ghostly trees all dead and dry; Here a patch of glassy water; there a glimpse of mystic sky? Have you heard the still voice calling – yet so warm, and yet so cold: “I’m the Mother-Bush […]...
12. I thought the Train would never come I thought the Train would never come How slow the whistle sang I don’t believe a peevish Bird So whimpered for the Spring I taught my Heart a hundred times Precisely what to say Provoking Lover, when you came Its Treatise flew away To hide my strategy too late To wiser be too soon For […]...
13. I never told the buried gold I never told the buried gold Upon the hill that lies I saw the sun his plunder done Crouch low to guard his prize. He stood as near As stood you here A pace had been between Did but a snake bisect the brake My life had forfeit been. That was a wondrous booty I […]...
14. In Memoriam A. H. H.: 39. Old warder of these buried bones Old warder of these buried bones, And answering now my random stroke With fruitful cloud and living smoke, Dark yew, that graspest at the stones And dippest toward the dreamless head, To thee too comes the golden hour When flower is feeling after flower; But Sorrow fixt upon the dead, And darkening the dark graves […]...
15. A train went through a burial gate A train went through a burial gate, A bird broke forth and sang, And trilled, and quivered, and shook his throat Till all the churchyard rang; And then adjusted his little notes, And bowed and sang again. Doubtless, he thought it meet of him To say good-by to men....
16. In the Train AS we rush, as we rush in the Train, The trees and the houses go wheeling back, But the starry heavens above the plain Come flying on our track. All the beautiful stars of the sky, The silver doves of the forest of Night, Over the dull earth swarm and fly, Companions of our flight. […]...
17. With Tears They Buried You Today With tears they buried you to-day, But well I knew no turf could hold Your gladness long beneath the mould, Or cramp your laughter in the clay; I smiled while others wept for you Because I knew. And now you sit with me to-night Here in our old, accustomed place; Tender and mirthful is your […]...
18. Travel The railroad track is miles away, And the day is loud with voices speaking, Yet there isn’t a train goes by all day But I hear its whistle shrieking. All night there isn’t a train goes by, Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming, But I see its cinders red on the sky, […]...
19. One Train May Hide Another (sign at a railroad crossing in Kenya) In a poem, one line may hide another line, As at a crossing, one train may hide another train. That is, if you are waiting to cross The tracks, wait to do it for one moment at Least after the first train is gone. And so when you […]...
20. The Buried Life Light flows our war of mocking words, and yet, Behold, with tears mine eyes are wet! I feel a nameless sadness o’er me roll. Yes, yes, we know that we can jest, We know, we know that we can smile! But there’s a something in this breast, To which thy light words bring no rest, […]...
21. A Week Later A week later, I said to a friend: I don’t Think I could ever write about it. Maybe in a year I could write something. There is something in me maybe someday To be written; now it is folded, and folded, And folded, like a note in school. And in my dream Someone was playing […]...
22. The Bombay Train Song He hangs on dangling handholds As the train sways and careens Endless nondescript buildings unfold Their secrets as the tired warrior returns. The day is over the night falls Thickly through the barricaded windows The man’s sleepy head lolls On his shoulder in a dream disturbed. The days are a hard white collar brawl The […]...
23. The Wicked Postman Why do you sit there on the floor so quiet and silent, tell me, Mother dear? The rain is coming in through the open window, making you all Wet, and you don’t mind it. Do you hear the gong striking four? It is time for my brother To come home from school. What has happened […]...
24. When the new year when the new year Came out of nowhere And peeped into rooms It was so flattered to find All the tv’s drinking its health Praising its innocent appearance It responded with its warm Dark smile and went round Filling people’s dry hearts With joy Over the coming weeks though Those same tv’s attacked it Criticising […]...
25. The Cat in the Kitchen (For Donald Hall) Have you heard about the boy who walked by The black water? I won’t say much more. Let’s wait a few years. It wanted to be entered. Sometimes a man walks by a pond, and a hand Reaches out and pulls him in. There was no Intention, exactly. The pond was lonely, […]...
26. More Later, Less The Same The common is unusually calm they captured the storm Last night, it’s sleeping in the stockade, relieved Of its duty, pacified, tamed, a pussycat. But not before it tied the flagpole in knots, And not before it alarmed the firemen out of their pants. Now it’s really calm, almost too calm, as though Anything could […]...
27. The Egg and the Machine He gave the solid rail a hateful kick. From far away there came an answering tick And then another tick. He knew the code: His hate had roused an engine up the road. He wished when he had had the track alone He had attacked it with a club or stone And bent some rail […]...
28. Stafford's Cabin Once there was a cabin here, and once there was a man; And something happened here before my memory began. Time has made the two of them the fuel of one flame And all we have of them is now a legend and a name. All I have to say is what an old man […]...
29. Train Ride For Horace Gregory After rain, through afterglow, the unfolding fan Of railway landscape sidled onthe pivot Of a larger arc into the green of evening; I remembered that noon I saw a gradual bud Still white; though dead in its warm bloom; Always the enemy is the foe at home. And I wondered what surgery […]...
30. Train Ride After rain, through afterglow, the unfolding fan Of railway landscape sidled onthe pivot Of a larger arc into the green of evening; I remembered that noon I saw a gradual bud Still white; though dead in its warm bloom; Always the enemy is the foe at home. And I wondered what surgery could recover Our […]...
31. Poor Poet ‘A man should write to please himself,’ He proudly said. Well, see his poems on the shelf, Dusty, unread. When he came to my shop each day, So peaked and cold, I’d sneak one of his books away And say ’twas sold. And then by chance he looked below, And saw a stack Of his […]...
32. The Twelve-Forty-Five (For Edward J. Wheeler) Within the Jersey City shed The engine coughs and shakes its head, The smoke, a plume of red and white, Waves madly in the face of night. And now the grave incurious stars Gleam on the groaning hurrying cars. Against the kind and awful reign Of darkness, this our angry train, […]...
33. Nirvana not much chance, Completely cut loose from Purpose, He was a young man Riding a bus Through North Carolina On the wat to somewhere And it began to snow And the bus stopped At a little cafe In the hills And the passengers Entered. He sat at the counter With the others, He ordered and […]...
34. If I Should Learn, In Some Quite Casual Way IF I should learn, in some quite casual way, That you were gone, not to return again – Read from the back-page of a paper, say, Held by a neighbor in a subway train, How at the corner of this avenue And such a street (so are the papers filled) A hurrying man-who happened to […]...
35. Sunshine FOR A VERY LITTLE GIRL, NOT A YEAR OLD. CATHARINE FRAZEE WAKEFIELD. The sun gives not directly The coal, the diamond crown; Not in a special basket Are these from Heaven let down. The sun gives not directly The plough, man’s iron friend; Not by a path or stairway Do tools from Heaven descend. Yet […]...
36. Buried Love I have come to bury Love Beneath a tree, In the forest tall and black Where none can see. I shall put no flowers at his head, Nor stone at his feet, For the mouth I loved so much Was bittersweet. I shall go no more to his grave, For the woods are cold. I […]...
37. Inland People that build their houses inland, People that buy a plot of ground Shaped like a house, and build a house there, Far from the sea-board, far from the sound Of water sucking the hollow ledges, Tons of water striking the shore,- What do they long for, as I long for One salt smell of […]...
38. Snow Day Today we woke up to a revolution of snow, Its white flag waving over everything, The landscape vanished, Not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness, And beyond these windows The government buildings smothered, Schools and libraries buried, the post office lost Under the noiseless drift, The paths of trains softly blocked, The world fallen […]...
39. On the Road Roar of the rushing train fearfully rocking, Impatient people jammed in line for food, The rasping noise of cars together knocking, And worried waiters, some in ugly mood, Crowding into the choking pantry hole To call out dishes for each angry glutton Exasperated grown beyond control, From waiting for his soup or fish or mutton. […]...
40. The Burnt Child Matches among other things that were not allowed Never would be Lying high in a cool blue box That opened in other hands and there they all were Bodies clean and smooth blue heads white crowns White sandpaper on the sides of the box scoring Fire after fire gone before I could hear the scratch […]...