The Arrival of a Train at Montparnasse Station

Marie-Augustine Aguilard was the only casualty of the famous Paris train derailment in 1895. She was selling newspapers on the street below when the locomotive burst through the wall two storeys above her.

 
I watched the presses yesterday—the gears
of iron whirling, pumping out the news
like gushing water. Days, they used to ooze
like honey back when I was a girl. The years
 
have flown—(oh, how cliché)—like speeding trains
they wouldn’t let us ride at first, for fear
our locomotive wombs would jostle. Here
I watch commuters wind their clockwork brains
 
beneath slick chimney hats as black as day,
light pipes that puff like factory smokestacks (mais
ceci n’est pas) completing the effect.
 
The wheels of progress won’t be stopped or slowed.
The price to keep the trains on time is owed;
the time is fast approaching they’ll collect.

Daniel Galef


If you have any thoughts about this poem,  Daniel Galef  would be pleased to hear them