Trains

For some reason, trains have always played a key role in some of my dreams as well as in my view of life. I know that trains usually mean journeys, but somehow that seems just a little too obvious. One of the only dreams that I have remembered for over forty years involved a train and a train station. I remember that dream today like I dreamed it last night, as if it were a movie in my mind.

I like trains. I like traveling on them. I like them because, when you drive in a car, you see highway and its landscaped boundaries. When you are in a plane, you see nothing but clouds, sunrises and sunsets. There's nothing wrong with sunrises and sunsets, but eventually they lack variety. However when you travel on a train, you see countryside. Train tracks are usually laid out in sparsely populated areas. On the occasion of a train ride from Washington, DC to New Jersey at Christmas time in the 1980's, I looked out the windows of the train and saw the lighted outlines of homes decorated for the holidays. It was a beautiful sight.

Unlike planes and cars, you can get up and walk around, going to a dining car for meals or to bed in a sleeper. I have always believed that a train ride was the most elegant form of transportation.

So, in a few of my poems, trains play a significant role, not only as setting but as metaphor. Tonight, I offer a narrative poem and a sonnet. Maybe you can figure out my obsession with trains. I am open to suggestion.

The Train Ride
Christopher Bogart

He walked all the way
Down the length of the train,
Through one car, then another,
Past one seat after one seat,
Tapping each on the head rest
With the tips of his fingers
‘Til he came to the last car,
To the last seat in back,
And,
With his back on the white chipped,
Painted tile of the wall,
He relaxed
For the long distance ride.

His eyes gently closed, and
His face glowed with bright light,
In the strange incandescence
Of a white wonder world,
Filtered right through the smudges
Of the grime-frosted panes,
Never cleaned by the rains
That had pelted the windows
Of this oldest of cars.

His ears barred the beat
Of the trains’ slow percussion,
Metal wheels hitting scars
With increased syncopation,
On the smooth silver bars
Of the worn metal tracks.

The monotonous rhythm,
The clichéd sound that trains make,
That loud clickety-clack,
Brought him back,
Slowly back
On the warm wheels of wonder
Passed the sound of the thunder,
And the strife…
And a far distant life
Never lived,
Yet remembered
For the whole of the ride.

As the train of his thoughts
Glided over the rails
Of his past,
In the dark,
Shooting sparks,
One event,
Then another…

Pinned there under his thumb,
Was a virgin green ticket,
Paper dumb,
Never punched,
Once,
Or ever
All the life of his ride…

Yet,
Within its soft seams
Was the end of his dreams.



Sonnet 21
Christopher Bogart

As I plow through the fields of dying weeds,
Releasing milkweed angels to the air,
Each step rips at my arms until they bleed.
Each step, a murder to what could be there.
I look for metal rails I know should last
Long buried, deep beneath the fertile ground.
Their wooden ties once spied on visits past
Seem bent on their intent not to be found.
In mute frustration, I survey the field.
Past cowardice floods my throat with bitter bile.
Each train I’ve missed brings memories that yield
A line that stretches back for miles and miles.
But while I’ve missed past chances by the score,
This next train is a chance I can’t ignore.