Clickety-Clack
by Odin Roark

Clickety-Clack

Silver streaks from east,
Phantoms from west,
From afar they came,
Anxious voices calling out.

Cheeks pressed on glass,
Once of eyes bright,
Gazing at platforms ahead,
Smiles amassed,
Amidst waving hands,
Welcoming home,
The one and all,
For all and one.

Clickety-Clack

Rails once polished for speed,
Sought the touch of wheels,
Deft swirling wrists
Did windows clean
Preparing mirrored moon swept romance of night,
Reflected sun-driven ambitions by day,
Remembering uniformed hole punchers,
Slump-shouldered yesterdays
Now rocking retirement to sleep.

Reflection peers back
As windows darken,
Engulfed by aging tunnels
Once bright in their darkness.

Progress announces new light ahead,
The shining bullets of today,
Leaving behind a barren station here,
Another generation becoming the past there.

For today wedges of speed levitate
Their airborne speeds of flight,
Transporting expectations in tow,
Absenteeism made more distant by silent tech,
With ipads and smartphones,
Enhancing their reality through earbuds
While sipping designer coffee in hand.

Tunnels of magical darkness pass unseen
Clickety-clack now but a whoosh of air.
No clatter.
No rumble.
No screech.
No contact.

Bodies silently exit in mass,
Converging into future’s progress-melt,
Time’s circle of no exit,
Where an endorsed future
Leaves behind its lamented past.

Clickety-clack…

Clickety…

…

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