.
CTA cross junction, northwest corner of The Loop, Chicago; control tower 18 guides north and southbound Purple and Brown lines intersecting with east and westbound Pink and Green lines and looping Orange line above the Wells/Lake Street intersection: photo by Daniel Schwen, 2007
In labyrinthine catacombs sunk far beneath
great glass and concrete blocks
where a sacred grove once towered
white smocked post docs in masks
plant electrodes in the stripped and peeled
back skulls of mice and rats and monkeys
the actor kept distant from the act
an implicit pact of society
..............................
as though every creature left alive now
and supported on two feet
were not itself a test subject
in the final animal experiment
shrouded in silence without echo
which proceeds as if without a driver
The train does not make
up its mind where it wants to go
it just follows the tracks
great glass and concrete blocks
where a sacred grove once towered
white smocked post docs in masks
plant electrodes in the stripped and peeled
back skulls of mice and rats and monkeys
the actor kept distant from the act
an implicit pact of society
..............................
as though every creature left alive now
and supported on two feet
were not itself a test subject
in the final animal experiment
shrouded in silence without echo
which proceeds as if without a driver
The train does not make
up its mind where it wants to go
it just follows the tracks
Northward view from the Adams/Wabash station at night: photo by Daniel Schwen, 2009
Northwest corner of the Chicago Loop elevated tracks: photo by Daniel Schwen, November 2007
10 comments:
...thinking about tracks...
"Caminante, son tus huellas
el camino y nada más;
Caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar.
Al andar se hace el camino,
y al volver la vista atrás
se ve la senda que nunca
se ha de volver a pisar.
Caminante no hay camino
sino estelas en la mar."
Antonio Machado
The tracks are beautiful
specific
lead into the clean city
beautiful at night
with lights.
Nobody there
as The Specials sang
about the town.
Where did all the commuters go?
At night--
it is a different city
one they would not call home
would not mourn
except for missing
the tracks they rode
they counted.
"White smocked post docs in masks"
The almost nursery lilt of the line, the comic touch, makes the image as it seeps into the head all the more horrendous.
A clock's rhythm too, of course. Tracked time.
Huge flanks
under there somewhere
cattails
reds browns purples gold
rich full
fall Tallgrass
frost
list this wing
famous
prairie
flyway
"The train does not make
up its mind where it wants to go
it just follows the tracks"
This is it--what modern science does/replicates-- people, places, things. All the proper nouns.
These words brand, burn, and click so smoothly. I smell the fumes, hear the whistle.
"the final animal experiment"
This life
but who
are the scientists?
We see the teams
but who is in charge?
Poets take up
foresic duties
shoved aside
report
to the pale blog
to its owner beyond
the curtain
is the curtain.
Presumably the technicians go off to sleep in dark rooms at night (how do they sleep??), but one supposes the lights stay on in the cages; where, whatever the hour, it's always torture o'clock.
Torture O'Clock
Dirty socks
rock chock full-o'-nuts
plenty yesterday.
Today I seek
sooth
sayer again.
My fortune.
"white smocked post docs in masks"
much like
the bearded PhD.
we know these doctors
who are in the midst
of their procedures
following an invented routine
like the tracks
leading in and out
of lives
we live and die
by the tracks
hobos, all
addicted to their
only routes
where we hop off randomly
into the wide and empty landscape
curing into a ball
before we hit the ground rolling.
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