I close the door and turn the key
To keep the past away from me.
I feel it piling up like snow
Against the house wall, and I know
This room is growing smaller day by day.
Nowhere to go
And soon, nowhere to stay.
Dull, thuggish tomes of time accumulate
Shoulder to shoulder all along the shelf,
Nudging me ever closer to one date.
So much time left behind, so little left.
Try to escape: go wading down the train;
Carriage by carriage, struggle to the rear,
While the train rushes ever on and on.
No one jumps clear.

Jan 2012

dear Pam

i like these lines a lot
silent lotus

thuggish tomes of time accumulate
Shoulder to shoulder all along the shelf,

`

I don't think it's entirely done to best effect yet, but great poem, Pam. Its richness is responsible for the raft of ideas below!

Three good images, and the last line can apply to all of them, even as it lends itself most easily to the last. The structure could maybe use some adjustment, I think.

A challenge in that first two images work together with N stuck inside the house, and the third farther-flung, on a train. How to signal this leap? Maybe something short & melodramatic between "date" and "So" a la Emily Dickinson?

Do thugs "nudge" or something stronger - "shove" etc.?
The "Heavy as hooves" doesn't quite make sense to me. -Tom


I close the door and turn the key
To keep the past away from me.
I feel it piling up like snow
Against the house wall,
                                 and I know
This room is growing smaller day by day.
Nowhere to go
And soon, nowhere to stay.
Dull, thuggish tomes of time accumulate
Shoulder to shoulder all along the shelf,
Nudging me ever closer to one date.

So much time left behind, so little left.
Heavy as hooves, my feet wade down the train
Carriage by carriage, struggling to the rear,
While the train rushes ever on and on.

No one jumps clear.

I'm just wondering when we left the house and boarded the train?

Good work, but I could use a smoother transistion from place to place.

Thank you.  D

Thanks, Silent, Desiree, Tom. I quite agree about the linking of the images and was worried when I posted.
Perhaps something along the lines of:

Nudging me ever closer to one date.
So much time left behind, so little left.
How to escape? I blunder down the train,
Carriage by carriage, struggling to the rear,
While the train rushes ever on and on.
No one jumps clear.

Or:

So much time left behind, so little left.
Into reverse? I blunder down the train,
Carriage by carriage, struggling to the rear,
But the train rushes ever on and on.
No one jumps clear.

Hooves don't go with wading, I admit! I do prefer nudge to shove, although I see your point.

Pam, I don't see how it's going to make sense in a typical linear narrative kind of way.
Poetically, though, why not - the leap made by structure somehow, or with a bold, simple Eeee  or something. My take anyway. Tom

I love this poem and the whole analogy of the room closing in and the piles of snow.  There is some great imagery/figurative language in this.  My problem is that I become a little confused at the last three lines.  I don't quite get why you are struggling to the back of the train.  Is it to avoid some roadblock up ahead and to be safer during "the life accident."  Also the last line, "no one jumps clear" jars with me a little bit I guess because I don't fully get the last three lines.  I do love the other parts though...great images.

Believe me, Casey, I'm as confused as you. I was trying to suggest the hopeless struggle to avoid  time by moving backwards down a forwards moving train, the heavy hooves and wading suggesting that nightmare feeling you get of trying to run away but not being able to move.  Tom, can you give me the Emily D poem you were thinking of? it  could help.

I didn't have one poem in mind, Pam, but her general knack for the odd, small exclamation that joined things. I will try and go have a look to see what I'm talking about though - ! Tom

a nice write, Pam.
love how you've worked
the enjambments here,
provides a really smooth
read.

tiko

Thanks, Tiko.

Like this very much Pam, tho' agree with comments about the leap from house to train...maybe don't leap...stay with the first image of the shrinking room...

I may well have to, Sue. Back in the drawer for a while, I think, until I can resolve!

Rereading, Pam, still enjoying a lot. A few new thoughts. In S1, dispense with "I feel" and "I know" and let the images stand on their own?
Toward the end, where it was originally

Heavy as hooves, my feet wade down the train
Carriage by carriage, struggling to the rear,
While the train rushes ever on and on.

No one jumps clear.

why not just cut "Heavy as hooves" and let the wading be all the more disembodied for it? Then, in final line, why bring other people into this portrait of solitude, among other things? Why not revise it so it refers just to self?

Tom

good editing points there Tom.