Lianamir at 19:27, 11 September 2017

2017-09-11T19:27:05Z

Lianamir: Created page with "I saw you on the night train to Glaston, : pencil in your hand and marking history : as it passed in scattered beams breaking : darkness under scattered stars. : A woman sat i..."

2017-09-11T19:25:49Z

Created page with "I saw you on the night train to Glaston, : pencil in your hand and marking history : as it passed in scattered beams breaking : darkness under scattered stars. : A woman sat i..."

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I saw you on the night train to Glaston,
: pencil in your hand and marking history
: as it passed in scattered beams breaking
: darkness under scattered stars.
: A woman sat in the seat before you, facing you—
:: she was old, her lines were tired, but her eyes were bright—
:: to ask what it is, this marking down of history
:: like stainless steel tines pressed down into meat
:: so you can taste it. And you looked at her and blinked.
: You did not see the woman sitting in the seat behind you,
:: back to your back, hand stretched upon your image
:: on nighttime glass—
:: she was young in her own image, but
:: reflections cannot be trusted in the mirror or the glass,
:: not like pencils marked in primary accounts,
:: not like tales of night; no,
:: she was only visible in nighttime glass,
:: a dangerously weak reflection covering reflection
:: with young-looking fingers—
: as you blinked at a woman
: not her.
Your voice stuttered like the flicker of bright candles,
: not like your marking hand so steady,
: as bright beams breaking through the darkness
: on the night train to Glaston when it jerked to a halt
: and we waited in our seats as you blinked at the woman—
:: What is it, this writing? this marking down of history,
:: this making now of histories, personal—
:: who waited.
: The jerk made us silent, imposing like shadows
:: beamed through the darkness,
:: beamed through the bright beams
:: of Republic enforcers, bound by their treaties,
:: by softly, darkly whispered promises under starry nights.
You did not see me—teller, taker—
: on the night train to Glaston as Republic men
: in dark blue coats beneath their bright and yellow beams
: of light and ’neath the starry skies of darkness
: boarded and asked with the woman facing you—they asked,
:: What is it, this marking down of history
:: like tines of heartless steel that men may taste
:: and even remember? What is this, this writing?—
:: And you answered because you were a man of them,
::: a man of the Republic in this new, most brave of ages,
::: because you carried your credentials
::: as a marker down of history,
::: because you smoothed over their lies and made them
::: sink into my gullet like their words were only history—
:::: We have the right to check this train;
:::: we have the right to check your passage
:::: (though we live in new and braver ages,
:::: where the cities are the kingdoms
:::: and the kingdoms are the cities
:::: and they had no right to ask of us who rode the train).
You did not see me—thief, remaker—
: or my struggle deep beneath this violated skin,
: could not see the ash that marked these fingers
: staring into nighttime glass at your reflected face
: or feel the way I saw you with two gazes—mine, not mine
:: (they do not tell you this when speaking of the ashen:
:: they never told us what they did not know, that men
:: and woman whose skin had learned to heal,
:: whose skin had learned to kill,
:: were always riding on a two-way street).
: You did not see me breathng in,
:: then breathing out—
:: I felt I could not breathe, not in this skin,
:: for it was mine
:: but the words bubbling up within my throat and brimming
:: like the loss of all that meat I tasted in your histories,
:: it was not mine; it was a woman’s—
::: she was not facing you or sitting on this
::: train beneath Republic beams and scattered stars
::: and darkened skies as you marked history
::: with your pencil and she joined in asking you,
::: What is it, this marking down of histories, personal?
The ash was in your pencil, on my skin—
: I could not tell myself it different,
: that maybe I had met the woman elsewhere,
: elsewhen, not knowing I would come to sit a woman
: back to your back, staring you in the glass;
: I could not tell myself the other,
:: that maybe I had lost my blood in gutting dark Republic notions
:: and a woman poured her life like ash into my skin:
:: I could not hate you, could not love you
:: (one less one is perfectly equal to zero), could not banish
:: from this violated ashen skin the way she knew your half
:: reflection and knew you were a man of the Republic
:: that smoothed the lies and marked the histories in primary accounts—
:: and made them true.
You did not see me—blooded, breaker—
: smoothing down my skirt with the same hand
: that smoothed down memory of another
: and smoothed the glass to see you better,
: that smoothed the lies back down their gullets
: and shattered their installation
: earlier in the night—
:: for we must keep our treaties
:: bound on their enforcers
:: and keep them from the wilderness they used to own,
:: the nights they used to claim;
:: this is the night train to Glaston,
:: of Glaston,
:: not the Thorn Republic,
:: not their yellow beams.

And what made me better than these men whose eyes,
: gliding off of women—one old, one rather young—
: neither dressed for nighttime raids and both
: with perfect passage papers and the perfect alibis?
: What made me and mine right to force our will
:: on your Republic, on the space between the cities,
:: and forbid you of your land?
: My claim was in the blood—
:: have you listened to the ring of steel and marked their
:: histories on your ashen’s skin?
:: have you seen us cold and splintered, spilt? do you
:: understand her name?—
: for I am blood spilt from the children that they slaughtered
:: to make the living weapons we have been,
:: and I am blood shed from parents
:: killed to take their daughters, take their sons,
:: take their twins;
:: I am blood from all our victims, all they who fell beneath the
:: outstretched hand of the Republic, they who fell beneath the
:: laws they could no other way enforce,
:: and I am blood from all the handlers
:: who could not enforce against their weapons,
:: us, the monstrous children.
: My claim was in the blood,
:: for I had shed no blood that night
:: when I shattered their installation, when I
:: cracked it into pieces, when I
:: broke their walls in pieces and
:: my claim was that their men
:: could don their dark blue coats, step out into the darkness
:: of a starry night and stop the night train to Glaston
:: search among the markers down of histories,
:: the women old and rather young,
:: and ask me questions they had trained me once to answer
:: without answering—and live.
: My claim was that I saw you on the night train to Glaston,
:: with another woman living underneath my skin—
::: (for when she poured her life in ashes
::: into my life in blood,
::: I lived)
::: a woman I know loves you,
::: a woman who would stare in your reflection—
:: and could have challenged all these men in their blue coats,
:: brought chaos on the men of the Republic and the cities
:: to defend my life, to finish what I started;
:: and I was on the train to Glaston.
I saw you, pencil in your hand and marking history;<br>
you did not see me—teller, taker—on the train.

← Older revision		Revision as of 19:27, 11 September 2017
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		+	== Summary ==
		+
		+	[[Category:Kingdoms and Thorn Poetry]]
		+	[[Category:Narrative Poetry]]
		+
		+	== Text ==
		+
	I saw you on the night train to Glaston,		I saw you on the night train to Glaston,
	: pencil in your hand and marking history		: pencil in your hand and marking history

History Lesson on the Night Train (poem) - Revision history

Lianamir at 19:27, 11 September 2017

Lianamir: Created page with "I saw you on the night train to Glaston, : pencil in your hand and marking history : as it passed in scattered beams breaking : darkness under scattered stars. : A woman sat i..."