Poetry and all that

In my younger days I wrote a fair amount of poetry, and when taking a poetry writing course in grad school at MIT, the professor asked me to be a Teaching Assistant, both to provide feedback to other students, and to help run the class. During that time, I submitted a number of poems to the MIT student magazine Tangent, and they were published. 

For a fuller background, the one-page essay of personal history I wrote is the first page in a Google Drive PDF document (you can visit it to view or download any part of the document you wish. The link is: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lhOmbso-o1N0hhWJbWQxf6e2LN7i9qKz/view?usp=drive_link .

The remainder of that Google Drive document is most of the poetry, published in a variety of places, and a few unpublished ones. This was by no means all the poetry in my background, just a sampling, emphasizing the published material.

More recently, I have written a few railroad-oriented poems, and when a friend recently viewed a few of them related to railroad topics, he said I really ought to share them in this blog. One is “Helper:” see https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2020/11/additions-to-small-personal-post-poetry.html . Here’s another one. 

                      Coffee

 

Aiming down the long straightaways,

driving alone to Montana,

hours adding onto hours,

occasional snow ticking the windshield,

the pines and bare trees flashing by,

looking for a little diner

for some pie and coffee.

Finding a place finally,

hunching over the counter

with its heavy brown china,

the mug of black coffee,

plate with a slab of cherry pie,

seeing in my mind’s eye,

another thick mug, in another place.

 

Swaying caboose, trucks and draft gear

banging underneath the floor,

standing on the rear platform,

watching the rails unwind and trail away,

hands wrapped around the mug of coffee

in the chilly wind.

The brakeman frying potatoes

in the sheet iron skillet,

the coffee getting stronger

in that chipped gray enamel pot

at the back of the stove,

all of us watching our feet

as the slack ran in and out

on the long hills and valleys.

Occasionally a whiff of fragrant smoke

from the big articulated far ahead,

sometimes an echo of the whistle

as the hogger blew for those

country grade crossings.

 

Triggering memories,

holding the warm, heavy cup

and smelling that good coffee.

 

 

Hope this flashback to an earlier life is interesting or enjoyable.

 

Tony Thompson