Train 2000

You are the train that leaves at zero hour
of the new year.
Again the same compartments, illuminated,
like smoke in the vast night.

The same passengers —masks on their faces,
loved, dear ones.
And vigorously clasped in the hand,
traveling glasses.

You are the train that will pour
burning wine on the skin,
so that it will blaze
madly.

So that among pillows and shelves,
slander and deception,
intrusive flocks of night romances
will come flying.

…You are the train, the murderer and the target,
the weakness of time;
the two thousandth railway abhorrence
of an old God.

But even in the pre-cancer fog,
in the foam of a stroke—
the soul, as if it was a candle on the table,
stands in a beam of light.