Poem by William Carlos Williams

Overture to a Dance of Locomotives

  I

  Men with picked voices chant the names
  of cities in a huge gallery: promises
  that pull through descending stairways
  to a deep rumbling.
                     The rubbing feet
  of those coming to be carried quicken a
  grey pavement into soft light that rocks
  to and fro, under the domed ceiling,
  across and across from pale
  earthcoloured walls of bare limestone.

  Covertly the hands of a great clock
  go round and round! Were they to
  move quickly and at once the whole
  secret would be out and the shuffling
  of all ants be done forever.

  A leaning pyramid of sunlight, narrowing
  out at a high window, moves by the clock:
  disaccordant hands straining out from
  a center: inevitable postures infinitely
  repeated--

  II

  Two--twofour--twoeight!
  Porters in red hats run on narrow platforms.
  This way ma'm!
                --important not to take
  the wrong train!
                  Lights from the concrete
  ceiling hang crooked but--
                            Poised horizontal
  on glittering parallels the dingy cylinders
  packed with a warm glow--inviting entry--
  pull against the hour. But brakes can
  hold a fixed posture till--
                              The whistle!

  Not twoeight. Not twofour. Two!

  Gliding windows. Colored cooks sweating
  in a small kitchen. Taillights--

  In time: twofour!
  In time: twoeight!

  --rivers are tunneled: trestles
  cross oozy swampland: wheels repeating
  the same gesture remain relatively
  stationary: rails forever parallel
  return on themselves infinitely.
                                  The dance is sure.

1. Berket and the Stars
2. A Goodnight
3. The Late Singer
4. April
5. A Celebration

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