going somewhere
not moving but never
standing still.
smell of incense from
Jackson Hts., next stop
Stillwell Ave. and Coney
Island just for the joyride,
just for a moving passage
in the cheap seats.
Samosa chat behind us
and the forests in acres
of girder columns
supporting every subway tunnel
in Brooklyn.
in the dark
down here below the mountain,
only light is spark and 3rd-
rail flash, blue on shadow
and epochal soot.
Ditmas Ave. station’s
beige walls of an outdoor
prison. blue on shadowy
support skeleton and
braces, the souls of ancient
iron workers wrought
eternally in strong memorials,
cast deep and projecting
only into perception
where the cars’ wheels gap
and blue arcs—
they are demons
they are devis
they are crying voices
in night resident
or leaping under
the carriages and
the living passengers,
contained in all our own
oblivion of consciousness.
“I repeat—standing
clear of the buh buh buh.”
going somewhere,
but Avenue P is
not that place.
.
sign at the Coney Island station:
M A N H
& QUEENS
10/22/06
