Hello everyone!

Important Announcement!

Today’s Poetics is the penultimate event at dVerse Pub. Sanaa will be hosting OLN on Thursday and the live edition on Saturday. After that we will go on a two week break and be back on July 8 (Quadrille Monday).

Now back to poetics 🙂

My father spent most of his life working in steel plants. Most of these steel plants were in the eastern part of India. Whereas the rest of my mom’s and dad’s families were in the north. So every summer vacation, we would catch a train to be with them. In those days there were steam engines and it usually took us around 36 hours to reach our destination. We always looked forward to travelling by train because it was an experience in itself: chug-chugging through fields, forests, tunnels and bridges!

From a railway Carriage by R. L. Stevenson

Faster than fairies, faster than witches

Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;

And charging along like troops in a battle

All through the meadows, the horses and cattle:

Those days, travelling by first class was prohibitively expensive. So we always travelled by second class, carrying our own bedding and food. The train compartments would be crowded, chaotic and cacophonous. It was no less than a miracle that we managed to board the train with all the luggage, pressing through the swarm of sweaty co-commuters. But all I remember, after so many years, is that we had so much fun! Meeting strangers, sharing food, reading books, clambering up and down the berths and most of all enjoying the changing scenery every few hours, never mind the grit hurting our eyes!

Travel by Edna St. Vincent Millay

My heart is warm with the friends I make,

And better friends I’ll not be knowing

Yet there isn’t a train I wouldn’t take

No matter where it is going.

Train travel has changed so much over the years.  The swanky electric trains are faster, cleaner and still cheaper than flying. And if you think of it, trains can also be considered liminal. (Am I right, Dora?). They are a transition space taking us from point A to point B. Many a times in movies trains are used to convey the transition a character is going through. Remember the dumped heroine staring out of a window in a train! Even though a train takes a passenger from one place to another, it is a safe resting space in itself.

The Train of Life by Marv Hardin

They sit in sad remembrance,
of wasted days gone by,
And curse their life for what it was,
and hang their head and cry.

Meandering to the rhythm of tracks people have been known to unburden their secrets to strangers, fall in love or renew ties with their own family. You may not believe in the romance of trains but I am sure you all have some memory of a journey that still makes you smile.

Train of Life by Matt Ballinger

As I go around the city train

the train that I call life

it runs in circles everyday

from here to a place on main

Just like the train.

Today, for our Poetics, write a poem sharing with us your train travel experience. It can be the daily metro/tube/subway/local you take to work/study or the inter city train or it can be the cross-country train. Tell us, in any poetic form, why you love or hate commuting by trains.

Two Hours on the Train by Abdellatif Laabi

During two hours on the train

I rerun the film of my life

Two minutes per year on average

Half an hour for childhood

Another half-hour for prison

Love, books, wandering

take up the rest

the hand of my companion

gradually melts into mine.

If you are new to dVerse, please write a poem on the topic above and link back your post to this post. Also, leave a link of your post at Mr. Linky, where other poets can find it and read. Do take time to read other poems you find at Mr. Linky, it is always an enriching experience to read what others have written. Please remember Mr. Linky will close at 2.00 pm Thursday.