YAY! This is wonderful. I love that captured moment. Reminds me of all those conversations I've had with strangers while traveling. Often some of the most memorable moments from a trip. Thanks for playing! 🤗
I love your poem and how you use the train's sounds as a metaphor for all that noise in our heads. I was inspired to write a little ... maybe a haiku of sorts.
What a fabulous idea for a poetry prompt. I love using quotes and excerpts from novels to create poetry and this sounds like a great way to discover new poems and poets, or think about them in a different way.
Lovely first prompt and poem. And thanks for the share. I have this project in my mind to come play once I’ve caught up post Xmas. Gah to other work getting in the way. Congrats on launching it 👏👏👏
It's most definitely a poem! I love it. Very brave to dive into something new. I'm so happy you're here. When I write something new I often tuck it away for a week or two. Then I come back to and see if any edits stand out to me. Then I repeat the process. What's fun is if I'm organized enough to keep a clean copy of each iteration. That way I can decide to go back to something I liked better from an earlier version, and see the whole process in action. I hope you come back again this week for week 2!
Oh thank you for your encouraging words Tara! I decided to feel the fear but do it anyway, how else do we learn? I will definitely keep coming back. Thank you for this safe space.
The railroad track is miles away;
I left it with my childhood.
And now its paralleling lines
Wind only in my memory.
For I've travelled to a place
Where railroad tracks aren't needed.
We ride and sway instead inside
The Great Lakes endless seaway.
Those last two lines--they are a pleasure to read as well as being haunting.
The railroad track is miles away
.
It’s been so long since I’ve been on a train.
The closest I came was taking the light rail
from a transfer station to the airport.
Waiting on the platform was a woman
who drew my eye: her platinum blonde hair
and stacked high heels, her black capris
and bright lipstick. She was older than me,
maybe in her sixties, so chic.
I tried to take subtle notes on her outfit.
When she sat next to me, I was so pleased,
ready to learn. We ended up talking
about our families, about estrangement,
about time spent trying to fix broken things.
I told her what I feared about my trip:
that my sister wouldn't want to talk to me.
She told me it was going to work out.
Or maybe not. She told me it was still
going to be okay.
YAY! This is wonderful. I love that captured moment. Reminds me of all those conversations I've had with strangers while traveling. Often some of the most memorable moments from a trip. Thanks for playing! 🤗
Thank you for hosting 😊. I’m feeling very excited and curious about the rest of the poem (I’m not familiar with it and am going to wait to read it).
this is my first draft, still needs work, but I enjoyed the prompt... :)
.
I have not seen a friend in forever now
the railroad track is miles away
and yet I can still hear the noise of metal
on metal, feel the gentle rock of the wooden carriage,
and the toot of a horn in the distance
I wonder if my friends are on the train
why they don't stop to visit
perhaps they have forgotten me
as they look at the blurry scenery passing by
marvelling at it all
excited just to be moving, unlike me
I wonder if they know how far away
the railroad is
do they know I cannot reach it
have they considered me at all
too busy with their adventures
leaving me behind with the unwanted luggage
too heavy to carry along
too much to bear
the railroad track is miles away
my friends are on the train
and I am watching from a distance
as their journey unfolds.
Wonderful, Lisa! First drafts are magic, and exactly what we're looking for here!
I love your poem and how you use the train's sounds as a metaphor for all that noise in our heads. I was inspired to write a little ... maybe a haiku of sorts.
The railroad track is far away
still the train's horn sounds
morning's first hour
Love it! Thank you so much for spending a bit of time with this. 🤗
What a fabulous idea for a poetry prompt. I love using quotes and excerpts from novels to create poetry and this sounds like a great way to discover new poems and poets, or think about them in a different way.
Zivah, hooray and welcome! So glad to have you here.
Lovely first prompt and poem. And thanks for the share. I have this project in my mind to come play once I’ve caught up post Xmas. Gah to other work getting in the way. Congrats on launching it 👏👏👏
Would be so delighted to have you along on this journey, Nelly, in whatever way you can manage. 🤗
& how you learned to count
by numbers on tanks & tenders
thomas, 1, up to hiro –
& how christmas that year,
you, young & tender,
our eve quiet & somber
& how you won't remember how
our eve wasn't decorated, tidings
rolled out like the tide
& how you, sleeping in your manger
didn't hear what i heard, crackle
of bing crosby on vinyl –
spinning at 78rpm
my whirlwind whooshed up a tree,
blew fairy lights on,
you counting trains in your sleep
& how i pounded in the steel
rails for the track & how
blue christmas wasn't somber
& how while you rested
tenders carried incense
& myrrh & how –
awake now, you chuff
to your train yard
those tracks built so
far away, that playtime lasting
forever that day,
really useful engine,
my boy,
my boy –
& how.
A lovely prompt :-)
.
the railroad track
is miles away:
.
the ocean even further,
further still—tucked
.
in the crooked neck
of a god—yonder
.
<3
Thanks for the shout out - very much appreciated!
You are most welcome. But the thanks should all go to you for sharing such a helpful piece with the poets of Substack. Cheers!
Also, your poem is lovely. So many satisfying similes and metaphors, plus that uneasy hunt for a feeling/sound/thing is so familiar.
I have never done anything like this before. I don't even know if this is a poem but here goes, nothing ventured nothing gained.
Railroaded
I took that train forty years ago
Flinging myself away from you
But still my heart follows its trail
Jumps the tracks
Grabs the rail
Stows away among the cargo
And the buffalo horns
Finds its way
Inevitably
Back to you
In spite of everything
That came to pass
The lies we told each other
If you were to open your arms
Once more
I would speed
Like a bullet to your side
Sleek and oh so deadly
It's most definitely a poem! I love it. Very brave to dive into something new. I'm so happy you're here. When I write something new I often tuck it away for a week or two. Then I come back to and see if any edits stand out to me. Then I repeat the process. What's fun is if I'm organized enough to keep a clean copy of each iteration. That way I can decide to go back to something I liked better from an earlier version, and see the whole process in action. I hope you come back again this week for week 2!
Oh thank you for your encouraging words Tara! I decided to feel the fear but do it anyway, how else do we learn? I will definitely keep coming back. Thank you for this safe space.
The rumbling of freight trains was my childhood lullabye
I have always lived within hearing of the railroad tracks
within earshot of the rumbling of trains
Their rhythmic clicking and clacking and thumping and bumping
sang me to sleep as a small child. And as a teen.
And I could hear them from my college dorm room
and from the cold turquoise-tiled hotel room that functioned
as a dorm room in Manziana, north of Rome, I heard them
as I huddled beneath the brown wool blanket on my squeaky bunk bed piled with clothes.
And even now when the evening is quiet
and the windows are open
I can hear the distant whistle of the train
though the train station is two miles away
calling me calling me to come ride.
Paul Simon sings: everybody loves the sound
of a train in the distance.
Is that a train I hear or is it just the wind or an airplane?
I dream of trains carrying me away.
The very best was sleeping on trains
the semester I spent in Europe
rocked to sleep
in mechanical mother's arms
sleeping so well
or sometimes poorly-- when it was too hot
or too crowded to lie down--
waking up in a new city, a new country
new language new currancy
stepping off the train into a new adventure.