There is a small inflammation under the trigger finger
a way through the crowds of people milling about
dressed for self importance
the surging breath of approach
as the fitful engine drags thousands into
that town
on the coast where
the rail lines weep and waiting room teak seats creek
the silence after the train leaves
its gouging press through mountain tunnels
the punishing of tourists more severe than
the locals who paid less for the service
the big world and all there is in it
the tarnished brass and broken whistles
for a mile up that line
the lost peons that fly
from the battle
to the edge of my eye
the beans that fry
the times we sit down to die
it is not the wooden beast of the lean
the starving ox at midnight
the lose canon drift that spikes the line
with broken sixpence danger
or the loss of human life
the explosion on the mountain face
the rapid climb from the bottom to the top
the loose arrangement of carriages and
the poor conducting the gnashing sounds
metal grips metal
the broken taste of dry mouths
there was always a bridge over the ravine
down which the brass boiler gleamed
reflecting sunlight in a sickly wild turn
dragging the carriages along a sharp bend
nobody would know, this was not real
except the film crew
who stood round the model or
the musicians that provided percussion
in an adjoining room, they were building houses on the moon
and down the hall performing surgery on an egyptian mummy
who wins several games of russian gin rummy
the inventions filmed and stored in a giant computer
that spat them out as they lined up for the slaughter