2AM NIGHT TRAIN, TAKE ME SOMEPLACE NEW
Trains pass through our town at 2AM, trains that wake village sleepers
Bind those that wake with spells and enchantments to listen immobile
Tracks are switched by invisible hands to derail dreams in progress
Dreams not to be remembered anyway come time to rise for work
The howling of locomotive horns holds back behind the stage curtain
The very understudies called up from the actors' union hiring hall
Understudies and their thoughts wait on tiptoe trembling, ready to leap
But remain unperformed behind the threshold lines taped on floor
Lines across which lies recognition and fame, action its own reward
Rented aspirations lay piled like discarded dressing room clothes
All put away unpurchased, unowned, unearned - unworn, saddest of all
As the ow ow owling night train howl bays, bleeds a last spurt of hot combusted breath,
A finale for the night concert, fading the cry to love new chances that ought be taken
And leaves in beds and heads of the gathered audience piled high
Dry leaves raked for dispersal, twirling counterclockwise in winds of sighs
That stir every morning a few steps, just a few steps more ahead
Of the planet's change from night watch to day labors
Twice, thrice each night the gypsy caravan rolls in
And sounds through each darkened block of our town
And every house in earshot can attend the show
All can open the gate between sleeping and waking worlds
Brittle leaves of still desire and dessicated hope swirl spellbound
Go green and supple if for only passing minutes while the call is heard
You need only be alive tomorrow night to catch the next sound drift
And not too tired, and troubled enough to not sleep too soundly
The passing 2AM train calls a number, your cardboard badge on the actors' hiring wall
If dues are paid, loyal union hands can stand ready to take the call and cheat Death
And taxes a little in lives imagined onstage, while the train horns call the village roll
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1 comment:
To my mind (or what's left of it), this poem is very melodic and trance-like. Brings images of being on the cusp of consciousness, where all yearnings of the soul are real possibilities. Yet when the line is crossed into waking worries, something fresh and alive becomes deadened:
"Brittle leaves of still desire and dessicated hope swirl spellbound
Go green and supple if for only passing minutes while the call is heard . . ."
And so we end up living for the next night's blue night.
"A finale for the night concert, fading the cry to love new chances that ought be taken."
It costs us more to heed the call to touch the fabric of the universe than to live our lives circumscribed by material comforts and our own realistic expectations.
You say it so much more eloquently. Thank you, Jim.
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