Poetry Day - Midnight Train

Previous entry here.

Today's quick poetry post hosts an older poem titled Midnight Train, which is the first one I think I wrote for my creative writing class in high school.

The original version placed 5th in a contest and can be found at the following link:
http://www.weeklyreader.com/readandwriting/Bowler+Runner+Up+5+BrMidnight+Train.aspx

Since the poem is probably considered published even if revised, I don't mind posting the updated prose version:

"I once picked up a dusty violin with a flimsy, cracking bow. It felt lonely, and screamed in my hands at the thought of being returned to its case, to the shadowy corner. Instead of putting it away, I lifted the wood to my shoulder. I softly coaxed a tune from the quivering wood, until I recognized the whistle being thrown out by the calming instrument.

It had matched the nightly call of my old machine companions. With their creaking pistons, and gears, and proud smokestacks, they marked the trail constantly traveled until their message was lost in the clouds. The old ladies and Big Boys that ruled our land have diminished now.

Yet my violin, my newfound friend, was mimicking the night I crumpled into the soft leather of days behind me. I rode along to the next station in the engine’s favorite coach, watching fields illuminated by lover’s lamps, and marshes filled with fireflies blinking their SOS – come to me. Now. The places came and went with the rattle of the Midnight Train.

My trip, with no destination in the mind of the leader, carried me on, and on, and on. My only companion was peace. What a quiet pair we were. We rumpled and rocked along; the motions began soothing cracked fingers, and massaging beyond my limbs into a weary back; the motions began nudging, opening constricted capillaries –

Yet as the clogs I had obtained began to dissipate within me, the whistle suddenly screamed her shrill cry.

It pierced the quartet circle in my attic corner. My eyes snapped open, the emptiness of carved wood still draped over my shoulder; it began quivering as it realized it had lost its companion. The shriek of bow-on-string ruined the chemistry. The dream we had created was now echoing,

Echoing…

Echoing…

Leaving me nowhere appreciated."