'Overture to a Dance of Locomotives'

Men with picked voices chant the names
of cities in a huge gallery: promises
that pull through descending stairways
to a deep rumbling.

                 The rubbing feet
of those coming to be carried quicken a
grey pavement into soft light that rocks
to and fro, under the domed ceiling,
across and across from pale
earthcoloured walls of bare limestone.

Covertly the hands of a great clock
go round and round! Were they to
move quickly and at once the whole
secret would be out and the shuffling
of all ants be done forever.

A leaning pyramid of sunlight, narrowing
out at a high window, moves by the clock;
discordant hands straining out from
a center: inevitable postures infinitely
repeated -

two-twofour-twoeight!

Porters in red hats run on narrow platforms.

This way ma'am!
               - important not to take
the wrong train!

               Lights from the concrete
ceiling hang crooked but -
                            Poised horizontal
on glittering parallels the dingy cylinders
packed with warm glow - inviting entry -
pull against the hour. But brakes can
hold a fixed posture till -
                           The whistle!

Not twoeight. Not twofour. Two!

Gliding windows. Coloured cooks sweating
in a small kitchen. Taillights -
In time: twofour!
In time: twoeight!

 - rivers are tunneled: trestles
cross oozy swampland: wheels repeating
the same gesture remain relatively
stationary: rails forever parallel
return on themselves infinitely.
                         The dance is sure.

	-- William Carlos Williams