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NOT ABOUT THE TRAIN
This is not about the train
that runs its rhythmic course
from town to town through fields and forests.
This is not about the train
that eases into waiting stations,
pausing politely to accommodate a diminishing public.
This is not about the train
you hear in the distance of your sleep,
feel rattling your bed
as if you are aboard,
being transported by rail from dream to dream.
This is not about the train
suspended in a vision
as the world rushes past at so much faster than locomotive speed.
When the mournful whistle fades
and the woods overgrow the rails
and the town entombs the tracks in concrete
and, at the eatery that used to be a station,
the final dozen diners finish supper and depart,
leaving the walls to echo unto themselves
like the phantom ocean in an empty shell,
then you will know
this is not about the train.
(Mike Cohen – Nov 2003)
Transcontinental railroad completed, 1869 – the Locomotive Age…
Manned moon landing, 1969 – the Space Age…
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BACK IN THE SPACE AGE
A long time ago, back in the space age,
ours was the new generation.
The moon was the new America.
We were bound for the sky,
bound, with giant strides,
to appropriate Heaven for Mankind’s sake.
The flag was planted, the claim staked.
It was all ours for the taking
and taking was our specialty.
The red shift was on. The universe was expanding
and we were expanding with it.
Our potential knew no bounds.
We had put a man on the moon,
and having done the impossible
it was impossible to fathom
there might be things we couldn’t do.
The cosmos was open for business
and the business was ours.
Yes, we’d put a man on the moon
and were certain that soon
we would put billboards on Mars.
We’d accelerated past the sound barrier,
and expected that in no time at all
we’d be traveling through time
at the speed of light.
Since then we have travelled through time,
but not so fast.
And our time travel has landed us here,
in this strangely familiar place,
where we think nostalgically
of the infinite potential we used to have
back in the space age.
(Mike Cohen - Feb 2007)
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From the golden age of American musical theater comes the quote, “If you believe, clap your hands. Don’t let Tink die!” It was Peter Pan exhorting the audience to save his sick friend, the fairy Tinkerbell, by clapping for her. American musical theater had is gilded age in the time referred to here as “the guilt-free days.”
THE GUILT-FREE DAYS
Ah! For those good old guilt-free days,
when our food wasn’t forced to wear incriminating labels
so the fat content of your favorite snack could be
whatever you damn well pleased…
when we never considered the malignancy of cigarettes,
when the sun was our friend,
X-rays were playthings,
and we could breathe freely,
assured by the knowledge that there was asbestos to safeguard us against fire…
We trusted
not only in God, but in tap water and table salt,
in the American Dollar and the American Dream,
in our banks and our businesses, in our industry and our ingenuity,
in our press, in our priests, in our presidents, in our pesticides,
in the paint upon our walls,
and lastly and mostly, in ourselves.
For in those days we did not snicker at the mention of the honor system.
We found room on our walls and in our hearts for homilies like:
“Honesty is the best policy”; “Cheaters never prosper”; and “The Truth will out”.
Ideals and innocence were sustained, like Tinker Bell,
because there were those who believed.
Perhaps those days were guilt-free
for as good a reason as these days are not.
Of course Tinker-Bell doesn’t exist. And do you know why? –
Because no one claps for her anymore.
(Mike Cohen – c. 1995)
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In time the contradictions fold over on each other, cancelling out, if not all knowledge, all of certainty. Instead of older and wiser, a person becomes older and more confused. But confusion may be the only reasonable conclusion in a world where everything turns one hundred eighty strange degrees (and then some).
ONE-HUNDRED-EIGHTY STRANGE DEGREES
I’ve lived to see the fires freeze.
I’ve learned that ice can burn.
One-hundred-eighty strange degrees
every one will turn.
I have seen the valiant cower,
the gentle act on spite.
I have watched the weak take power
and the brave take flight.
I’ve heard the greatest tales untold
by honest men who lie.
I have seen the young grow old
and the living die.
Sometimes a moment lasts an hour,
but light-years pass by night;
and sure as sweet cream will go sour,
the sun will lose its light.
I’ve heard the sparrow’s tune turn flat
and poems lose their rhyme.
One may hold long to this or that
but all escapes in time.
I’ve lived to find that ice can burn.
I’ve learned that fires freeze,
and that words and worlds will turn
one-hundred-eighty strange degrees.
(Mike Cohen - c.1994)
