The Trains Go Thundering By .. .

The trains go thundering by
more a figure of speech
I sit at the corner of a dusty road
forlorn much of hope

The tanks came after
then the larks sprung forth
and the shouting of the soldiers
in the gutter at the shortest day

When we were children
standing aside to watch those
steam-snorting leviathans
as they go thundering by

We believed in our future
while we sang ditty songs
in the classroom of learning
assumed mothers always know

Washed our hands in snow
thought we would never die
until memories, things transparent
appeared deeply as in invisible ink

They, who lived twice
Saint Sebastian, all the rest
those who hung from a gibbet
who lived with summer hope

As trains go thundering by
below or above the highway
tales we told ourselves as kids
fresh from newspaper cones

Up on the stoney parapet
we learned to whirl
the rattle, beat the drum
sing out loud our favourite songs

when Mr Harold came we played
on red-tiled door steps
where come ‘RT’ busses
always travelling in threes

Those trains still thundering after
I, inside my box room
middle classed in suburbia
cul-de-sac inspid with inertia

Believing in the something
but then nothing anymore
not since Hiroshima, 9/11
the rape of common man

The antecedence of horror
the antipathy of truth
the rush of man’s desire
to conquer different tribes

Who tampers their genetics
play gods with other lives
who wrestles leviathan
controls the march of time

Watch then with your child eyes
watch the loyal soldier
watch a father die
as trains go thundering by

..

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©edenbraytoday24.12.2022

my christmas pome – 2022