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.
Commentary
It takes a very special poet to see and capture the beauty of something as banal as a railway station. It takes a very special poet to take the sheer mundaneness of the experience of entering that station and to turn it into an allegory and a vision of human existence. It takes a very special poet to convey, with incredible clarity, not only the sight of the terminal, but also its sounds and its rhythms. It takes a very special poet to combine the easy realism of “two-twofour-twoeight!” with the analytic precision of “inevitable postures infinitely repeated”. It takes a very special poet to make something as clunky as an old steam locomotive dance.
It takes William Carlos Williams. What moves me about this poem is the sheer beauty of it, the extravagence of the conceit and the breathtaking way that Williams pulls it off. It’s amazing how exact Williams’ observations are - to see what I mean just try boarding a train from Grand Central station with “promises / that pull through deep stairways / to a deep rumbling” running through your head. And it’s fascinating how the poem is truly an overture - how there’s a distinct sense at the end of having been launched into some great adventure, of a rhythm building to some grand waltz. Just the way you feel when you’re starting a long train journey and the train finally pulls out of the station and into the countryside.
— Aseem
P.S. Is it just me, or does this poem read like a cubist or Dada-ist painting - like something Marcel Duchamp would have painted?
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From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.
John Burstow · 28 February 2005
I get a “what hell have we wrought?” feeling from this poem.
–John Burstow