22/30 TRAIN LINE

Long after that mauvaise langue fella, Spitfire,

spat fire on Dorothy on Sugar Hill

the night before her wedding

then wrote a calypso called

'Last Train to San Fernando'

to let everybody know,

the train ran on.

And when the last passenger train left

for San Fernando and for good,

the train ran on

like molasses
with stalks of sugar

from the cane-fields of Debe and Barrackpore

to the factories of Usine, St. Madeleine

till the tall gate across Naparima 

Road, St. Madeleine was lowered

and raised for the last time.

Meanwhile, all along the train line

the homeless and the lawless, 

like explorers and discoverers of yore

in the name of Kings and Queens
of crime before, plant flags 
and take possession,
in the name of the poor,

of vacant lands 

where the train once ran.

©2013 by G Newton V Chance