Train Stations at Night

 

If a train station in the fog

At one or two in the morning

With a late train speeding past it

And a single lamp showing as a blur

Is not the acme of loneliness,

Then please don’t tell me what is,

Because I don’t think I could bear to hear it;

Even the station is almost too much.

Heroes

 

Every moment is an opportunity for heroism,

Though probably not the burning-building kind –

Unless you happen to be in a building

Which happens to be burning,

In which case please stop reading this poem

And save at least yourself.

The rest of you, consider heroism

Not as a seven-story leap through fire,

But as a way of breathing, smiling, cocking your head,

Sipping your coffee, unwrapping a chocolate bar.

Think of Paul Newman.  He did ordinary things –

Onscreen and in “real life” –

Let’s say about half the time.

But it was Newman doing them, and so

The can of beer he popped or the dog he scratched

Attained a kind of mythic meaning for

Us onlookers – and maybe for him, too.

You’re not Paul Newman, I assume.  But still.

You could do dull things a little less dully.

You could maybe even do magical things,

Unthinkable to you now, if you begin

With a dog or a beer or a chocolate bar

Or putting on boots, or calling an old friend.

And meanwhile, if you see that person from

The first stanza – the one whose shirt’s on fire –

Please roll him (gently!) on the ground for me,

And offer him a little of Paul Newman’s beer,

Which Paul, who knew how thirsty we might get,

Heroically, mythically, simply, left behind.

Wisdom

In the present, there are no problems.

That’s what the wise people say.

So no one invites the wise people

To parties anymore.

It’s doubtful they would come anyway,

Unless at the moment of decision

The thing that seemed most natural

Was putting on a coat,

And moments later they were seized

With an unaccountable urge

To open the door of their apartment –

And so on, ad nauseum.

For normal people, meanwhile,

The present is never just itself.

It always arrives in a false mustache,

Crudely impersonating the past,

Or smuggling in the future

In the hollow heel of its boot.

It’s always telling a lengthy story

That turns out to be pointless,

Or making some prognostication

That turns out to be wrong.

It’s always hitting on the hostess

But never sealing the deal,

Or vomiting all over the furniture,

Sick from a drink you never saw it take.

In short, it’s a nightmare party guest,

But at least it shows up at all,

Unlike those wise people you stopped inviting,

Who are off somewhere being authentic,

Living in something they call “the moment” –

Forever putting on and taking off coats.