Pacing on a brick brown brick platform
w/ pimpled yellow trim
craning neck past the edge
of the down town train trench
rumble shakes steel rail
shuddering mice to hiding holes
scampering grey hair against sooty rails
like deaf chameleons w/ hairless tails
red & yellow white lights
herald orange people moving machine
thundering under city & streets
blurred speeding windows
display glimpses of flooded fluorescents &
faces flashing onto retinas
seeking familiarity and finding none
cars career into slowness
then stop
turning on softened rubber soles
eyes seek space
to sit or stand w/ in
calculate distance and time
‘til the doors’ signaling chime
glimpse glance scan
then turn & swiftly stride
boarding outbound train
bounding towards Jamaica Plain
"Into the Station" originally appeared in Poesy #12 (Spring 2001.) and also appears in Tokens: Contemporary Poetry of the Subway, edited by Peggy Garrison and David Quintavalle (New York: P & Q Press, 2003.) In 2006 it was selected by the Mayor's Poetry and Prose Program for an exhibition at Boston City Hall. May be reprinted with permission of the author.
The poem has since been choreographed as a pantomime.
Into the Station brings the reader onto a subway car. We feel there. We feel the rumbling, shaking, and blurred speed of the train. Ian Thal uses the senses to make a subway ride come alive.
Your insight is correct in that one of the things for which I aim in my poetry is to portray "the psychedelic" in everyday life. Chemicals are not necessary: it's just a matter of discovering the correct perspective and proximity.
At the heart of the eight compelling nonfiction stories and five-article appendix which make up Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah is this interesting question: What would your life mean if you were living someone else's dream of what it should be?
Your insight is correct in that one of the things for which I aim in my poetry is to portray "the psychedelic" in everyday life. Chemicals are not necessary: it's just a matter of discovering the correct perspective and proximity.
Ian Thal
~*~*~*~ Shivani... {Celestial Merlyn} ~*~*~*~