Helltrain

Helltrain

"I ride on the mailtrain, baby /can't buy a thrill..." ~Bob Dylan 

You can buy a ticket

but you can't buy a thrill.

It's all 'be in at the kill,'

but the victim don't pick it.

You can tell them to stick it

(and they certainly will.)

On the overground pale-way

the fare's taken in souls.

The dead-wagon rolls

to the market each sale day,

but ratbags on the trail may

soon eat the controls.

Still, the circus tent's pie-warm,

and the clown car's on Uber

(tho the Clown's in a stupor

from some three a.m. tweetstorm.)

Cassandra's on cable in fine form

til the noosers come loop her.

You can buy a ticket, you all,

but you can't stop the train,

and you can't towel off the hard rain

that's been brought here to fall.

 ~January 2018

written for  Shay's Tickets, at real toads
 

 


ratbag: Victorian slang for (*cough*) 'a despicable person'

Optional Musical Accompaniment

Images: American Train, © Hiro Yamagata,  All Rights Reserved. Fair Use
Rabbit on a Train, © Michael Sowa,  All Rights Reserved  Fair Use.

Friday 55 Comprehensive Holiday Edition

It's that season, dear readers, when everybody is rushing and pressed for time, so I am offering poetic dispensation to any and all of you who may not have the leisure or the inspiration to construct a 55 for the next few weeks. As always there are no rules other than the word count, so please feel free to participate or not as you see fit, and please bear with me as well, as I may not always be available or online myself.

That said, this single post will remain active for Friday December 22nd 2017, Friday December 29th, and Friday January 5th 2018 with comment moderation off so everyone can come by when they can--be patient however, since as I said above, I will not always be around, especially the week following  New Year's Day.

That said, a very happy Yule season to all, and a deep thanks to all of you who make this Friday journey so memorable. Have a kickass holiday, and let's all hope for at least a saner New Year.

I have written two 55's for this combined edition...

Ruins

"...I have let time pass, which..helps more than reasoning.”

~Queen Elizabeth I

I.

I wake in the night

thinking of ruins;

not the makers

but their leavings: fort,

church, graveyard,

house, each

with no tomorrow of its own, yet

a casket full

of glass for magpies,

scroungers' stones,

writers' plots,

lovers' verses, shadow beds

for weary ghosts

and so must be content

to watch the walls fall down.

 

II.

These rainy ruins

where ravens ride wrinkled sky

where nightfall black-backs silver-mirror moons

however weak you are,

you can stroll forever, 

muscular past for a walking-stick,

hear a hundred private jokes

the ghosts still tell/will tell

to you or the next one

for nothing's

as constant as a ghost

or more hopeful

than a ruin.

~December 2017

Optional Folky Musical Accompaniment

Images: Carpathian castle ruins, author unknown, via internet. Fair use.

Hope From The Ruins, ©Joshua Smith,  All Rights Reserved. Fair use.

Friday 55 December 15 2017

Another Friday swings us around to the writing table where 55 words make up a meal. This time of year I always find complicated; the social pressures, the meretricious and constant blare of exploitative advertisement, and various reefs and shoals of real life often combine to annul the festive, let alone that anticipatory sense of joy the holidays once may have brought to us as children. Nevertheless, it is a rich time, and I hope we can bring some of its fruits to our Friday cornucopia.

The rules remain the same--no rules, except to write 55 words of prose or poetry, no more, no less, and link in the comments below between Friday and Sunday. Many thanks to Galen Hayes for making this meme the pleasure it is, and a holiday toast to absent friends, in his honor.

The spirits here are not in a particularly seasonal mood...

 The Crow Shaman

The crow-shaman

knows the bones,

knows the fighting dance

where flesh is sweetest;

how to open secret doors

to rich warm ruby

meals beneath tough skin;

how something small, something shiny

can be stolen and made magic

even without hands.

Each death, each face,

each twilight rise

beneath his night-wide wings

he owns forever.

~December 2017

 Factoid: Crows remember and recognize individual human faces.

 Image via internet, author unknown.  Fair use.