Three Poems by Bruce McRae

Night Train

A train of thought,
traveling from somewhere to somewhere else,
the engineer dragging on its lonesome whistle
as if a convict his cigarette, the conductor
in two minds, in two opposing quantum states,
existence vying with non-existence.

A train of thought in the long black night,
the passengers inhumanly quiet,
their tickets punched and paid for,
their mouths shut but their eyes open,
stealing a few cursory glances
at the blackened countryside,
that light at the end of the tunnel
receding, coming closer, moving away.


Coming Along Nicely

At the junction of Now and Again.
In a country that hasn’t been invented yet.
Beside a river under temporal persuasion,
studying the finer details of handwritten tracts
but too damned close to see the bigger issues,
noticing how one man’s fact is another’s fiction,
applying a thick lacquer to cover the cracks,
the faults still showing and darkening with age,
gaining in mass, the perspective shrinking,
seeing before me the theatre of the self,
a vision floating freely into the stratosphere,
your face appearing, a voice saying something
I don’t need to have to deal with right now.
I really don’t want to hear it.


Less Than A Single Breath

On an island in a lake on an island . . .
At sea level. Stranded on morning’s beach.
Donning our rough apparel.
The small appearing large. The sleepers weeping.
Yesterday’s rain making fools of us all.

Dawn saws a jig on its catgut fiddle,
the wind in an awful and needless hurry,
gravity’s barbed hooks dangling provocatively,
the wind beside itself with work and worry.

Pauses couple, birthing an inbred stillness,
each eventual life losing its tiny lottery.
Soon the moments have piled high,
a tower of time, a backlog of grim reckoning.

Soon, the unbearable gifts of winter.

Pushcart-nominee Bruce McRae is a Canadian musician with over 800 publications, including Poetry.com and The North American Review. His first book, ‘The So-Called Sonnets’ is available from the Silenced Press website or via Amazon books. To hear his music and view more poems visit his website: www.bpmcrae.com, or ‘TheBruceMcRaeChannel’ on Youtube.