Wednesday 6th August, 2008

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A Thought for Today

Prayer works.

This One Does It For Me!

Ken,

Please, please, please would you let me have the words to "The Art of Catching Trains."

This has to be my best McKuen poem EVER.

Thanks.

Kate McNally

Here you go, Kate, and because you asked so nicely I've also included the lyrics to "To Watch the Trains."

You probably already know this but Rod normally performs the two back-to-back and it would come as no surprise to find both these items on the program for the November all request show at Cathedral City.

THE ART OF CATCHING TRAINS

1.

I came through the clothesline maze 
                  of childhood
in basketball shoes.
Up from the cracked cement of sidewalks.
Long hair blowing in the breeze
from barber-college haircuts.
I moved into the country
knowing love better than long division.

Tricking out with women twice my age
we acted out our own French postcards.
Dr. Jekyll in the schoolyard,
Mr. Hyde behind the barn.

After school the trains,
their whistles known by heart.
Pennies flattened on a rail
and dresser drawers with matchbooks
         from every northern town -
thrown by unknown travelers
who never waved back.

I knew the U.P. right of way so well
that gandy dancers called me tow-head
till they learned my name
and engineers would sometimes whistle
               down the scale
          on seeing my arm raised.

Baseball's just a sissy game
to anyone who's waved at passing trains.

You learn from hobos
the art of catching trains.
Locomotives slow at trestles
and whistle-stops
         to hook the mail.

Diving through an open box car
you lie there till your breath comes back.
Then standing in the doorway you're the king
as crowns of hills and towns go by
and nighttime eats the summer up
and spits the stars across the sky.

How did I come to know
so many lonesome cities
with only pennies in my pockets ?
I smiled a lot
       and rode a lot of trains
and got to know conductors
and railroad bulls by name.
From Alamo to Naples is a ride
that took me nearly twenty years.
But here I am,
my cardboard suitcase traded in for leather.

2.

Now a traveler
under the gray-black winter sky
moving down the mountain by torchlight,
I've come to find
a gathering of eagles.
Not for the sake of mingling
        with the great birds,
but only to justify
a thousand streets walked end to end.
Ten thousand evenings spent listening
to the small sounds of the night
in station after station.

Not every town in Switzerland
has a golden Gondelbahn,
but there are other ways
to climb the hills
and reach the lonesome cities
                    of the world.

Riding friendly bodies
you can inch your way to Heaven
let alone the far side of the room
and who'd deny that brushing elbows
            in certain streets
has not produced for every man
at least one vision of Atlantis.

For me old habits don't break easily
                       I wait for trains.

Sometimes I feel I've always been
just passing through.
On my way away, or toward.
Shouting alleluias at an unseen choir
or whispering Fado's down beneath my breath
         waiting for an echo
not an answer.
Everybody has the answers
or they'll make them up
                       for you.

Just once I'd like to hear
a brand-new question.

What about the trains you ride
do they go fast or slow
would I recognize your face
clacking past the poplar trees
if I were stationed on some hill ?

If I did I'd know you
by the look of nothing in your eyes,
the kindred look that travelers have,
the one that says a tentative hello.

If while riding down the rails
you see a boy in overalls
along the railroad right of way,
                wave as you go by.
Signal with a frown
you too are going down
                 that same road.

Small boys need encouragement
the freight trains in their minds
will only take them just so far.
Be kind
    for small boys need to grow.

- from the book & album "Lonesome Cities," 1967

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TO WATCH THE TRAINS

- © 1967, Stanyan Music Group & Rod McKuen