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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 8 of 8. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Atticus on July 12, 2005, at 14:10:28
Hear the subway wheels squeal
Their clarion call
To pinstriped pimps
Who think they know it all,
To the naked and the dead
On their daily trawl
For alms and survival
Amid the city’s squall,
Splashing through black puddles
Where sacramental blood falls,
And still the trains scream
Sermons meant to appall,
Preach that steel rusts away,
And even skyscrapers bawl
As they drape themselves
In misty cloud-cover shawls
Meant to mark their mourning,
Meant to cast a pall,
A shroud of gray vapor
Draped on granite walls,
For the lives lived among them,
That seem so very small.
Posted by smokeymadison on July 12, 2005, at 14:51:53
In reply to And Still the Trains Scream, posted by Atticus on July 12, 2005, at 14:10:28
i am not from London, but i can still appreciate it. you know, you are one of my favorite poets on here and i constantly wonder how you write like that. love it.
admiringly,
SM
Posted by Atticus on July 13, 2005, at 13:37:04
In reply to Re: And Still the Trains Scream, posted by smokeymadison on July 12, 2005, at 14:51:53
Glad you liked the poem. I'm an Irish-American New Yorker myself, but I've ridden the London tube enough times to have an inkling of how terrible the attacks must have been. Here in New York, where I depend on the underground to move about the city, we've got soldiers armed with M-16s all over the platforms and a police officer on every single train right now. It reminds me a great deal of all the soldiers carrying automatic weapons in NYC's Penn and Grand Central stations in the months after 9/11. For a while, they had faded back into the woodwork. Strange days, indeed. Ta. Atticus
Posted by sleepygirl on July 13, 2005, at 15:31:08
In reply to Re: And Still the Trains Scream » smokeymadison, posted by Atticus on July 13, 2005, at 13:37:04
indeed.
Posted by Atticus on July 14, 2005, at 11:35:19
In reply to Re: And Still the Trains Scream » Atticus, posted by sleepygirl on July 13, 2005, at 15:31:08
There's always some dark note of absurdity in these situations. While the police deployed throughout the NYC underground are wearing black bulletproof vests (and some what appears to be body armor), the soldiers patrolling Penn Station with M-16s slung at their sides are frequently dressed in desert camouflage fatigues -- as if those tans and browns and little drawings of rocks on the fabric are of strategic value set against the background of all of the hot dog and bagel joints, and the stores selling snowglobes prominently featuring the Twin Towers. There's just something so bloody odd about it. Atticus
Posted by sleepygirl on July 14, 2005, at 19:24:27
In reply to Re: And Still the Trains Scream » sleepygirl, posted by Atticus on July 14, 2005, at 11:35:19
YES!! I just can't reconcile it, so bizarre...
and if the whole thing has a homeless man singing in the background for some change, that makes it all the more eerie..What universe is this?
Posted by Atticus on July 15, 2005, at 12:22:42
In reply to Re: And Still the Trains Scream, posted by sleepygirl on July 14, 2005, at 19:24:27
Dunno. It's Alice-down-the-rabbit-hole on PCP and acid. So far, I'm decidedly unimpressed with the new millenium. Atticus
Posted by cockeyed on July 18, 2005, at 0:34:53
In reply to And Still the Trains Scream, posted by Atticus on July 12, 2005, at 14:10:28
Yo, Atticus, Mayor Boomberg must love you. You are a bastard...well, okay, a bit uncivil. But in '74 I saw a guy go under a train. I mean I didn't see him, but I saw...okay this is not ...well yes it is, I saw the faces of the people who witnessed it. I was walking another way, and the memories I recall are a bit like pompei. Of course, real time is, well, it's not there at all, it just goes on and on. But I remember the pall of faces frozen...and I was un-touched. But I suspect if I could paint, I'd portray hell as such. And the trains do scream,
I'd forgotten my fear...you couldn't get me back down there. Hell, New York's a bit of a walk, but, down in those tunnels...Christ, you nailed it. cockeyed.
This is the end of the thread.
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