Thursday, April 1, 2010

Tonight's Train


"Nothing at all, in my head, to say to you,
only the beat of the train I'm on.
Nothing I've learned all my life on the way to you,
one day our love was over and gone."


Train Song
:: Feist & Ben Gibbard

The carnival train is leaving
every night at revolving times.
You can tell by the tinkling of ice on glass,
that the bar is still open for business.
So, you run to the platform,
suitcase in hand and a half-cocked smile.
Board and go, darling.

For those of us who brave the night air,
well, we take what we can to get by.
Sometimes its a tune played a degree too loud,
enough of a noise to drown out the asperity tinging the air.
Block out the way his eyes glass and redden (again),
as his voice sharpens itself into a dead cruel point.
Time to run, darling.

Other nights its a book of jokes and a box of tricks pulled out,
humor and laughter and fast movements
anything to distract the beast.
Make sure he is constantly looking around, averting his eyes,
harder to hit that way, aren't you?
And sometimes, yes sometimes, the loud gaffaws carry him,
until he's passed out cold.
Poison the water, darling.

But tonight, we will get on the ride, hop that train,
go off into the rainbow land of never-ever.
Take a bag of oranges and a thermos of cocoa,
smile at the elephants and clowns 'round the back.
We'll read books with bright pictures, paint the side walls with recycled decay,
and tattoo on our pale skin the girl of a thousand days.

Ride the rails, oh darling, darling.

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