Scattered Ponderings

The Carriages of the Ghost Train

The first carriage keens for lonely souls, and, like a flood, they came.

Each searching for some other half, each one and the same.

Empty shells driven by a flickering glimmer, by a spark of hope.

And they came to the ghost train instead of going for the rope.

And they're dusty shapes in the inkwell skies.

Lost in the mist, they can bid no goodbyes.

The second carriage wails for the ghosts, who rattle their chains.

Punishment for the flesh and punishment for the remains.

Guilt ridden people dragging behind their own regret as well.

Suffocating in a dull grey carriage instead of a dull grey cell.

And they're bowed shapes in the torrential rain,

Striped men slowly driving themselves insane.

The third carriage chimes for the high and proud, and they arrive.

Glassy unblinking eyes as hollow dead as they'd been alive.

Chains hang golden from their neat grey suit and stiffened frame.

They sit in velvet, weighed by burdens heavier than those of shame.

The train flashes silver in the shadows of trees.

There are always more shades with unpaid fees.

The fourth carriage calls for the neglected, and they reach back.

Searching blind and mewling for the humanity that humans lack.

And they seek warmth the way a moth would seek a candle fire.

So many ragged shapes lacking what they should require.

The wheels whine louder than the souls they take.

The ghost train is but a dreary funeral wake.

The fifth carriage bellows for the angry spirits, and they rush aboard.

To give up fury is to be empty, and that's something they can't afford.

Fighting amongst themselves, in anguished anger their voices rise.

This noise is their distraction, this calamity is their disguise.

And the sun rises, bloody, as we travel on.

So much bitter torture for those already gone.

The sixth carriage, the last, is for specters who whisper unseen.

Those who are close to passing on, but who linger in between.

Mere flickers in the air, like the flash of fish under a rising wave.

And they cling to this shallow mockery of life to avoid the grave.

But things often come in sevens, do they not?

There is one more carriage that lingers, forgot.

And this one's for those living, for working lungs and beating hearts.

Well, at least it's for those alive, broken dolls with working parts.

The train rattled on, and I watched those who found themselves astray.

I met your eyes, and it was a wordless infinity, before you turned away.