there are trains which will not be missed
TRANSCRIPT
There Are Trains Which Will Not Be MissedAuthor(s): Denis JohnsonSource: The Iowa Review, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Spring, 1971), p. 12Published by: University of IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20157700 .
Accessed: 16/06/2014 06:24
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THERE ARETRAINSWHICHWILLNOTBE MISSED
they tell you if you write great poems
you will be lifted into the clouds
like a leaf which did not know
this was possible, you will never
hear of your darkness
again, it will become
distant while you become
holy, look,
they say, at the emptiness of train tracks and it is poetry
growing up like flowers between
the ties but those
who say this
are not in control of themselves or of anything and they must
lie to you in order
that they may at night not bear witness
to such great distances cascading and such
eternities unwinding around them as to cause even the most powerful of beds to become silences, it
is death which continues
over these chasms and these
distances deliberately like a train.
12 Denis Johnson
This content downloaded from 185.44.77.82 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 06:24:43 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions