The writers group met again today.
The homework was to write about either; How it would feel and what would you do if you won the lottery, or How would it feel and what would you do if you were a rock star. I didn’t feel very inspired with those – everything I wrote seemed pretty standard and not very interesting.
And then as I was driving home from ‘im indoors one night a couple of weeks ago, I saw a train in the dark. Out in the country side with no street lights the train just looked like a row of boxes of light and suddenly I felt a poem coming on. I don’t write poems very often as I don’t like how restrictive they are on words and from, although of course this is a good thing for a writer to practice.
Anyway here’s the poem.
Racing the Train
I slip into fifth and cruise up to seventy in this pitch black,
And suddenly there it is on my left,
A row of rectangles, brightly lit from within.
It must have noticed me as it cruises at my side,
Slowly coming closer,
Until it seems we must collide,
And it dives under the road in front of me.
On the other side it loses interest,
Flying away over the jet black fields.
A string of yellow rectangles in all that dark.
From here they seem quite smooth and steady,
No rattle and bang of carriages.
No noise at all except that coming from my radio,
Which argues with the road below.
We’re racing now,
Me and this snake of light.
Speeding across fields and hills,
Dodging round cows and cars,
Trees try to block our view,
But their thickening tips are not leaves yet,
And always that string of lights is visible.
I did have another verse but everyone agreed that it was very weak and didn’t add anything to it so I’ve taken it off. I think they were right.
Wonder what I’ll come up with for the next meeting?
The homework was to write about either; How it would feel and what would you do if you won the lottery, or How would it feel and what would you do if you were a rock star. I didn’t feel very inspired with those – everything I wrote seemed pretty standard and not very interesting.
And then as I was driving home from ‘im indoors one night a couple of weeks ago, I saw a train in the dark. Out in the country side with no street lights the train just looked like a row of boxes of light and suddenly I felt a poem coming on. I don’t write poems very often as I don’t like how restrictive they are on words and from, although of course this is a good thing for a writer to practice.
Anyway here’s the poem.
Racing the Train
I slip into fifth and cruise up to seventy in this pitch black,
And suddenly there it is on my left,
A row of rectangles, brightly lit from within.
It must have noticed me as it cruises at my side,
Slowly coming closer,
Until it seems we must collide,
And it dives under the road in front of me.
On the other side it loses interest,
Flying away over the jet black fields.
A string of yellow rectangles in all that dark.
From here they seem quite smooth and steady,
No rattle and bang of carriages.
No noise at all except that coming from my radio,
Which argues with the road below.
We’re racing now,
Me and this snake of light.
Speeding across fields and hills,
Dodging round cows and cars,
Trees try to block our view,
But their thickening tips are not leaves yet,
And always that string of lights is visible.
I did have another verse but everyone agreed that it was very weak and didn’t add anything to it so I’ve taken it off. I think they were right.
Wonder what I’ll come up with for the next meeting?
2 comments:
I like. But did the train win the lottery?
I don't know, are trains allowed to play?
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