Commuters

“Seattle Transit Train Commuters” by Allen Forrest

 

empty expressions
train depot relationships
social pantomime

 

 

(originally posted October 2013)

Bump and Jar

“Indifference” by Jorge Cardenas

 

 

 

commuter runs sing out
their steely speed
clipping through
countryside stretches
that echo their stark
syncopated shrill hum

 

but these passenger trains
decelerate sharply
all the way down to
a bump and jar pace
when encroaching
old cities and towns
where they often
crawl carefully
mindful of vandals
and vandalized track
en route straight up
the backside of life

 

unkempt boarded-up precincts
sad shantytowns
nobody sleeps in by choice
hard places
where scavengers
pick apart carcasses
iron or bone
either way
stolen cars
broken dreams
they both have their markets
where pieces of what
were once noble and whole
are reduced to
illicit commodities

 

wheel rims and hearts
minds and stereo parts
engines and genitals
yanked from their hosts
lost forever
sold or indecently used
by pushers of
powders and pills
by predators
trading in souls
shredding dignity
like so much
valueless
vinyl upholstery

 

and the passengers
never quite seem
to take notice
eyes occupied
somewhere with
columns of newsprint
with briefcases
notebooks or
lidded in naps

 

yet once through and out
each bleak zone of despair
as the train regains speed
bump and jar
smoothed away
more than half
the well-barbered and
trendy coiffed heads
turn to look
out the windows
and watch the benign
untroubling scenery
leading them blithely
on to their own daily dreams

 

 

Hoboken

First Baseball Game
Played at Elysian Fields, Hoboken NJ
Print by Currier & Ives At nj.com

“Hudson Street Brownstones Hoboken, NJ”
Photo by Andrew Prokos
At andrewprokos.com

 

a square gentrified mile
of brownstone ambitions
tucked under a cove of the Hudson
where fingerlike docks
play in shimmering
Manhattan shadows
that dance with remembrance
Sinatra and baseball
were born on these
maritime streets
built of cobbles and clamshells
between chimneyed castles
of capital magnates who
built major industries
here where great railroad hubs
carry commuters who
outnumber natives
a hundred-to-one
where no block is lacking
a bar or a bistro
where incomes are double
and tax rates are half
anywhere in the nation
remarkable blueprint
for modern prosperity
steeped in the founders’ affections

Flashback

Princeton, NJ Train Station
Photo from flickr.com

monster of Mondays
reeking of Amtrak airbrakes
rapid eye movement

 

(That’s my old train stop pictured above. But it’s been ten years since I retired. Dreams can reach a long way.)

Reign

South Street Seaport, Manhattan, NY
Photo from visitingny.com

(The glass tower pictured center above was my one-time office.)

horns blare in dissonant chorus
their dissatisfaction
impatient for progress
curvilinear tempers arise on exhaust fumes
that decompose wall-anchored flags
limestone canyons
draw scrums of impetuous feet
through security doors
daily witnesses having no memory
other than hidden-hand
video cameras
sleek cellular limousines smile
from their tinted glass grilles at the
underground rumblings and screeches
of wheel upon rail hauling
insecure briefcased careers
between depots of commerce
or insincere government service
black coffee
the currency just after sunrise
paints paths on the river
to ferry docks busily bumpered
with truck tires and tranches
of reckless securitized risk
here where stepping stones sink
and glass ladders go soft
where the mighty feel weak and the weak
disappear
I was king for a flash
of an ethical empire