Poem-A-Day: Day 82

One Train Departs from Detroit at 2pm Traveling at 45mph, While Another Leaves Chicago at 3pm Traveling at 35mph, Where Do They Collide?

Trains blurt out their last lonely call
and move on into their nightly courtship
of singularity across the rails.
The clack and rattle of metal on metal
shoots sparks into the cold dry air;
going unnoticed
in the stagnant hours of closure.
Despite their best effort to light
the surrounding darkness,
the sparks pop and fizzle to nothingness
before dancing together on chilly afterthoughts.

Trains move slowly,
cutting their way through the night sky
on gilded steely dreams,
shimmering like the best disaster
captured on film.
Smoke billows in cloudlike imitation,
dancing softly into the firmament
chiding silly sparks
in a way the makes mockery blush.
The smoke relies heavily
on some idea captured in time
and set to motion on antiquity.

Trains bound in opposite directions
happily into the darkness of the night’s laughter,
swimming through the cold
like torpedoes fulfilling a message
of acceptance.
Smoke and sparks banter in coy conversational
miscommunication:
piteous attempts
at one-upping
one another.
Whistles blurt
before the sound of metal on metal
turns a crushing afterthought
to the sound of solemn silence.

And among the smoke’s best efforts,
the sparks dance happily
in the carnage.

Poem-A-Day: Day 34

44

the cold steel flashes brilliantly
and fades to gray
in callow hands
sallow eyes
and flaccid fingers probing gently
amongst the pile of dead.

the diadem is no more diamond
than it is a golden halo of thorns
shattered softly on a furrowed brow
sweating bullets.

the ground is soft and malleable
and it pings metallic
rings ironic
and washes thoughts away
in crimson tides drowning borrowed souls.

the trumpet sounds spewing flames
glorious in hues of blues and reds
leaving burnt ember husks
still smoldering
tinder in the hand of god’s callous grace.

all worship the same devil
raining death
reigning death
from high above the skies
clouded by the cinder smoke
and reflected on the scarred land.