Poetry Train

“Take up the White Man’s burden,
And teach the Philippines
What interest and taxes are
And what a mortgage means.
Give them electrocution chairs,
And prisons, too, galore,
And if they seem inclined to kick,
Then spill their heathen gore.
They need our labor question, too,
And politics and fraud—
We’ve made a pretty mess at home,
Let’s make a mess abroad.”
― Ernest Crosby

“A new year is to hide the old scar by hoping to heal the new ones...”
― Munia Khan

“Give me a moment I am preparing to drawback to scream
Louder than a train overhead below a railroad bridge”
― John E. Wordslinger

“Who does not know what it is like to go with a friend to a railway station and then to watch the train take them away? As you walk along the platform back into the city, the person who has just gone is often more there, more totally there, than when you embraced them before they climbed into the train. When we embrace to say goodbye, maybe we do it for this reason—to take into our arms what we want to keep when they’ve gone.”
― John Berger