Sunday, August 17, 2008

Militant Poetry: Every Arrival Is A Departure




Every arrival is a departure.
Every departure is an arrival.

Life goes by in a blink, a flash.
A hundred thousand destinations being processed.
One man, one woman, one passenger
Peering out of the window into the subterranean world
of dimly-lighted concrete channels
Biding their time with books and newspapers and digital music earbuds -
self-contained.
People watching, or just sleeping.
Eyes shut in temporary drowsiness.
The whoosh of the wind and the clatter of tracks
and the whine of electric propulsion motors and the
piercing, unintelligible mumble of the motorman:

"Stand clear, the doors are closing."

Or was that:

"Tan Cleo, the dorsal clothing?"

Followed by dual monotone beeps.

None can ever tell. But alas, the station calls,
the boxy steel train decelerates.

You have arrived.

And you are headed for the opening doors -

Just as someone else takes your seat
and the process starts all over again.

Every arrival is a departure.
Every departure is an arrival.

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