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Chris Kornacki train roll i hear trains rolling in the distance; i hear trains rolling in the distance... when i hear trains rolling in the distance, pushing themselves across this country, inventing new sounds that break my 2 a.m. silent longing, cutting like razors through this dying city — i listen, & let myself ride with them, if only for a few seconds before the whistling, screaming horns, & the vibrations under the earth evaporate into the invisible breeze of the evening. trains are the gods of this city. the way a train draws your attention as it breaks through the horizon; the way it has the power to stop every motion at the intersecting railway crossings — the bars dropping like exhausted pilgrims at the feet of angels, red lights flashing from side to side, & the black & white stripes criss/crossing/ each/other. yes, the ringing of the warning (or welcoming) bells sound a deeper meaning than church choirs. “I love everything that flows, everything that has time in it and becoming...” wrote Henry Miller & i tend to agree: i love the flowing steel rivers of trains; i love to move & be pulled slowly or quickly into my humanity; i love everything that takes me away & drives me deeper into the Heart-Heart-Heart; & i love going down west on University Street until i reach the old train track overpass, than turn my direction downhill & move onto the now hiking trail that stretches out for a few kilometers under this city. & sometimes when i walk softly along the old tracks, i sit my body down on my knees, place my hands on the cold abandoned steel & wonder where it is that i, & we, are really going. i hear trains rolling in the distance... ©2004 by Chris Kornacki Chris Kornacki was born, raised, and still resides in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. He works in a factory, goes to school trying to finish up a degree in Philosophy, and writes poems. He's had poems published in Open Wide, remark, Words Dance, Edifice Wrecked, Liquid Ohio, and lots of other places. A joint broadside with C. Allen Rearick is in the works from Hemispherical Press.

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