Train Thinkings

The train is starting to leave the platform. I look outside, the landscape tells me it is colder now.
Across me sits a woman in no mood to talk, a man is reading in a paper. On the front page a picture of a woman with a veil.
Even she is shutting me out.
And so I wonder off in thought.

What does this all mean? Have I shut out myself as well?

To let in myself
from outside me
what will I find
in the corners
of my mind
once I have dropped
my veils for myself?

With my luck, probably a king size mirror.
The thought makes me smile out loud.

The man puts down the paper, the woman starts to talk.
I now see that they are together.
“It is getting colder,” I say, as their eyes have made me their accomplice. And within a minute, we are discussing
climate and the sixties, when Winters were real. But last year was severe as well. Yes it was.

The paper, now redundant, lies open, a picture showing a smiling face.
A winking eye.
They reach their destination.
The paper and I have a long way still to go.

The train shows how we changed the world since then
but do you care much, hidden in your book?
You travel best without having to look
at landscapes being filled with filth of men.
I notice that you lick your lips at times
and watch you smile because of prose you read.

Then there’s a second, where our eyes do meet.
You speak. “I don’t like poetry that rhymes,”
you say. “Do you?” and I search in my mind
to find an answer that is true yet kind
as you have eyes that make me love this train.
“I do at times,” I say, then you read on.
The splendor of the moment now is gone,
the world has changed some more and we have rain.

The train is going slower
due to another train in front of us.
At 3 pm, it is already getting darker.
In the window I see myself, but older now.
So much to think about
of how lucky, glad I feel
and why it is that I am happy;
a word no poet ever seems to use.
Counting my blessings,
not leaving you out by the way,
I watch the grey turn into black.
Still so glad I live, a feeling
too mundane for poetry?

I’ve known times that were not really mine,
when I couldn’t live my own life.
All it took to change, was stepping out
of stupid situations, getting no where.

The train is speeding up
and my thoughts are slowing down
into the deeper meaning
of acceptance.

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This is an experiment: I have combined 2 poems and a “prosety” piece into one. The prosety part is new, the poems were published here earlier : “Strangers on the train”, Jan. 22, and “Accepting some delay” Dec. 2. Please let me know what you think! 🙂