Wednesday, December 22, 2021
POEM: ROME EXPRESS BY NIGHT (1968)
Leaving behind laughter and pain,
Bringing joy or sadness,
Onward rolls the Rome Express
Pounding over the invisible German countryside,
Where, in other times, the young men died.
Faces tell stories, some of which are lies,
A smile may cover sadness,
A gloomy visage may hide a happy heart.
Strangers, strangely intent on remaining strangers,
Eyes avoiding eyes, souls avoiding souls,
In dark windows of the cars,
Outward looking eyes,
Mingle with the stars.
American soldier, German hausfrau, Turkish laborer,
In the compartment, rich and poor mingled,
Poured into this tiny, mobile room.
Across the compartment sits a Sikh,
With his uncut hair and beard.
An old woman takes black bread and apple
From her bag to make a meal.
The train passes sleepy German villages
In the night,
Where, not too long ago
A war was fought,
Now, peacefully fading
Into the night,
And memory.
{Photograph "Windows" by Dana Popescu.)
Labels: Dana Popescu, donovan baldwin, poem, poetry, Rome express, strangers on a train, trains, windows
Wednesday, August 15, 2018
John Steinbeck and I Are Alike When A Ship's Whistle Blows, Or A Fog Horn Sounds
"Four hoarse blasts of a ship's whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping."
- John Steinbeck
I know the feeling.
I grew up on the edge of Pensacola Bay in West Florida.
Some nights, I could hear fog horns from ships on the bay.
Boats wanting to pass under the Bayou Chico bridge, a quarter of a mile away, blew their horn. The train which passed my house daily, blew the horn for each driveway and road... and there were a lot of driveways.
I would walk down to the edge of the bay, look across the water, and images and stories would play through my head, and occasionally I would make up my own.
Sometimes I could see the ships... in the evening as the night drew down, I could see their lights, and hear the horns...
Trains, ships, stories, and horns... and a young man's imagination...
No wonder, like Steinbeck, some sounds, some memories, can raise the hair on the back of my neck... and make my foot start tapping...
- John Steinbeck
I know the feeling.
I grew up on the edge of Pensacola Bay in West Florida.
Some nights, I could hear fog horns from ships on the bay.
Boats wanting to pass under the Bayou Chico bridge, a quarter of a mile away, blew their horn. The train which passed my house daily, blew the horn for each driveway and road... and there were a lot of driveways.
I would walk down to the edge of the bay, look across the water, and images and stories would play through my head, and occasionally I would make up my own.
Sometimes I could see the ships... in the evening as the night drew down, I could see their lights, and hear the horns...
Trains, ships, stories, and horns... and a young man's imagination...
No wonder, like Steinbeck, some sounds, some memories, can raise the hair on the back of my neck... and make my foot start tapping...
Labels: boats, donovan baldwin, fog horns, John Steinbeck, Pensacola Bay, ships, stories, trains, travel
