I'm not sure in this where fact ends and fiction begins... but that's ok.

'repellent trains' ... I want more detail. I want to know the smell
and colour and sound of the trains.

Janet

On 28/05/2008, Kenneth Wolman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> THE SOCIAL REALISM OF NEW JERSEY TRANSIT
>
> The commuter trains travel in from Short Hills, Bedminster, Gladstone,
>
> and by the time they near New York, the onboard brokers and traders
>
> make the trains an Al Qaeda bomb-boy's sticky dream,
>
> 72 virgins circling beds in a Busby Berkeley choreograph.
>
> Oblivious travelers, sleep-deprived, doze past cities along the route.
>
> The New Jersey they don't see is the Gin Lane of their /Star-Ledger/
> nightmare:
>
> Abbott schools and drive-bys and witnesses who di'n' see nuttin'.
>
> The railway management is more depressed than its passengers
>
> because they are awake to see the ruin—
>
> you can't fix a State but you can spray perfume on shit.
>
>
> So New Jersey Transit, to boost its image, decides
>
> to emulate the best of railroading's past,
>
> the days when trains ran on time without Mussolini,
>
> the days when railways named their flagship trains
>
> (for who can forget the folklore of The City of New Orleans,
>
> even before Steve Goodman wrote its epitaph,
>
> or of the famous Empire State Express and Broadway Limited,
>
> sterling silverware, china, and the 60-year-old "colored boy"
>
> in his white linen there to serve you
>
> with a secret contemptuous smile).
>
> There /are/ limits nowadays, so instead of linen
>
> and your personal Negroid, they've even taken out the bar car,
>
> left us with repellent trains with butt-busting bench seats,
>
> but with names that reflect through the beam of blazing darkness
>
> the life of a State that dwells in dust.
>
> So Train 3248 from Gladstone hereafter is named The Insider Trader,
>
> while closer to the common life, Train 1140 from Port Jervis becomes
>
> The White Trash, and the flagship Train 2134 from Whitehouse Station
>
> now renamed The Negress.
>
> And of course there are protests, appearances on the radio
>
> by Revs. Jesse and Al, a howl of threats to shut down Newark,
>
> called off because nobody would bother to watch.
>
> The publicity backfires like a jammed up Glok or Mach 10
>
> fired by a 40-year-old high school kid who was last in class in 1989.
>
> Nevertheless, plans are tabled for any more namings or renamings.
>
> New Jersey Transit shoves into a drawer some other names that included
>
> The Sex Worker, The Homeless Guy, and the Wino—
>
> the last a half-a-mil broker cast adrift in the Burbs,
>
> who like Stevie Winwood can't find his way home, either—
>
> but he's still out there and he's purloined your name.
>
>
> KW/5-28-08
>
> --
> Ken
> Wolman	http://bestiaire.typepad.com	http://www.petsit.com/content317832.html
> -------------------
> "Stare.  It is the way to educate your eye, and more.
> Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop.  Die knowing something.
> You are not here long." -- Walker Evans
>


-- 
Janet Jackson <[log in to unmask]>
www.proximity.webhop.net (Poetry)
www.myspace.com/poetjj (Includes occasional arts & culture blog)

The Line Mine, bulletin board for Perth poetry & spoken word:
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groups.yahoo.com/group/thelinemine

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