R Train

by estory

Enter underground platforms
Of turnstiles, walls, lines
Uptown, downtown,
Local, express

Connections, interchanges,
Figures, faces
In the windows
Of the cars
On the rails

In the tunnels
Underground stations
Along the lines
Uptown, downtown,

Walls, rails,
The wheels of cars,
Newspapers, tickets,
The face of the ticket taker,

Muzak, graffiti,
Faces in the lights,
Windows on the dark
Tunnels underneath
The streets

People
Sitting in the seats
With their coats
And their bags
On the cars
Along the lines
Uptown, downtown
Local, express

Connections, interchanges
In between the stations
And the platforms,
Walls, stairs,
Lights

Rails

The wheels of cars,
Newspapers, tickets,
The face of the ticket taker

Empty platforms,
Stations, turnstiles,
Stairs, walls.
Exits

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This is a poem about the subways of New York City. It is in many ways, I think, a metaphore for the engineered, isolated lives that we live sometimes today. In this underground, artificial world, endlessly repeating, meaningless images flash past in brief glimpses, where strangers sit with their bags and coats and never speak to each other. It is truly a rat race in a man made maze of tunnels and rails, and yet there are still those brief glimpses of faces in it, those transitory moments of light and the promise of escape [the exits} that give us the hope we need to live on. The R Train is a subway line, and I used it because of the repeating 'r' sounds, the grinding feel of the language, like the subway cars grinding on along the rails. estory

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Free verse

A chapter in the book Word Games

R Train

by estory

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