Trains

Trains

In the sapling years

Of the post war world in

An English market town

I do believe we traveleed

In schoolboy blue

The cap upon the crown

And books on knee

Our faces pressed against the

Dusty railway carriage panes

As all our lives went rolling

On the clicking wheels of trains

The school years passed

Like eternity and at last were left behind

And it seemed the city was calling

Me to see what I might find

Almost grown I stood before

Horizons made of dreams

I think I stole a kiss or two While

Rolling on the clicking wheels of trains

Trains all our lives were

A whistle stop affair

No ties or chains

Throwing words like fireworks in the air

Not much remains

A photograph in your memory

Through the colored lens of time

All our lives were just a smudge of

Smoke against the sky

The silver rails spread

Far and wide through

The nineteenth century

Some straight and true

Soome serpentine from the cities to the sea

And out of sight of those who

Rode in style there worked the military mind

On through the night

To plot and chart

The twisting paths of trains

On the day they buried Jean Juarez

World War One broke free

Like an angry river overflowing

Its banks impatiently

While mile on mile

The soldiers filled the railway

Stations arteries and veins

I see them now go laughing on

The clicking wheels of trains

Trains rolling off to the front

Acorss the narrow Russian gauge

Weeks turn into months

And the enthusiasm wains

Sacrifices in seas of mud

And still you don't know why

All their lives are just a puff of

Smoke aginst the sky

Then came surrender

Then came the peace

Then revolution out of the east

Then came the crash

Then came the tears

Then came the thirties

The nightmare years

Then came the same thing

Over again

Mad as the moon

That watches over the plain

Driven insane

But oh what kind of trains

Are these that I never saw before

Snatching up the refugees from

The ghettoes of the war

To stand confused

With all their worldly goods

Beneath the watching guard's disdain

As young and old go rolling on

The clicking wheels of trains

And the driver only does this job

With vodka in his coat

And he turns around and

He makes a sign

With his hand across his throat

For days on end through sun and snow

The destination still remains the same

For those who ride with death

Above the clicking wheels of trains

Trains what became

Of the innocence they hand in childhood games

Painted red or blue

When I was young they all had names

Who'll remember the ones

WHo only rode in them to die

All their lives are just a smudge of

Smoke against the sky

Now forty years have come and gone

And I'm far away from there

And I ride the Amtrak from

NewYork City to Philadelphia

Now there's a man

To bring you food and drink and

SOmetimes passengers exchange

A smile or two while rolling on

The humming wheels

But I can't tell you if it's them or if it's only me

But I believe when they look outside

They don't see what I see

Over there beyond the trees

It seems that I can just make out

The stained fields of Poland

Calling out to all

The passing trains

Trains I suppose there's nothing

In this life remains the same

Everything is goverened

By the losses and the gains

Still sometimes I get caught up

In the past I can't say why

All our lives are just a smudge of smoke

Or just a breath of wind

Against the sky