The Secret of Writing: Revising Fiction and Poetry Journal Assignment: Poetry #2

Tracks of the Wandering Mind

I want sometimes naught but to weep
As standing by the trestle deep
I long to follow that railroad train
To a realm of dream that's free of pain.
What an urge I have to stray somewhere.
On a train that's bigger than a bear
Which climbs up toward old mountain peaks
And watch the sea for days and weeks.
A train to some vast tropic isle
Where swaying beauty makes me smile.
But the trains of reality just skitter off
And my city home where pollution does cough
Doesn't let me see the pyramids
Or drink till dawn with memory's kids,
Or ride off to the Orient
To get away from this discontent.
But today something inside me went through a shift
And gave my sprits that needed lift,
And I bid adieu to my dreams of escape
While the train roared through like a ghostly shape.

1. The archaic word in the first line would be the word “naught.” Even I don’t use this word, and I even use the word “beckon” (as a response to your query about whether or not I use that word.)
2. The phrase in line two that seems artificial is “trestle deep.” It would make more sense to invert it to “deep trestle.”
3. The silliness in line 6 is comparing a train to a bear. It appears the author did it simply to have a rhyme with the word “somewhere.”
4. As to stale phrases, I was going to say one was “the train roared through like a ghostly shape,” but I actually like the phrase. So, I’ll go with “gave my spirits a needed lift,” and “I bid adieu to my dreams of escape.” The spirits a needed lift is certainly stale; the “bid adieu” is certainly not used very often, but the sentiment it implies is seems very stale.
5. “I sometimes want to do nothing but cry”“As I stand in the ditch next to the tracks,”
“I wish that the train that’s passing“
“could take me to a place where I would feel no pain.”

Instructor Feedback

In my poetry I avoid words that I don't use during everyday life. That's the point here, to be true.
Gary