Dan Williams

Train of Thought

There was a train that left last night

        without a single rider;

seats were dusty to the touch and cold.

 Long ways from new, still not yet old,

like something hard was tried there

  then been given up without a fight.

      There was a train that left today

      along beside the unused road,

 over tracks that can’t be concealed from here.

To a place that aspires to be revealed as where

  we were ‘bout to cause an overload;

been left behind, off on the side, along the way.

      A train arrives while we stand crying

          the passengers, all children,

    who itch from being so long confined.

   Their laughter false, but cleverly timed,

  the traveling has them bewildered then,

   as maybe one they trusted had been lying.

 The train of thought that goes down south

      used up my tokens, was soon derailed.

       Steel tracks removed, wires severed,

  before one last sad excuse could be delivered

           why love has failed?

 Vows unwritten, poems unspoken, love had no chance.