Aboard! Aboard!

two poems

ABOARD! ABOARD!

O how the little towns flare in passing!

On the sidings, the obsolete engines,

How black by moonlight they gleam, thy cast skins,

O serpent, over the dead coals gliding,

More beautiful than the illustrations

In medical texts, or illegible

Manuscripts, corrupt beyond restoring]!

Always to be longing to be elsewhere -

O the distance! the futures receding! -

And always within, one's own vacancies,

Dark, dark as the spaces between the stars. . .

Ah, old companion, much-travelled Satan,

Alas, what destination but oneself?

And O how the miles reel at the wide gaze!