Subway Poems
By: Robert A Stribley
Tags: Subway, People, New York, NYC, Poetry

Subway Poems

Over a couple of years, I wrote a series of subway poems. Here they are now all together. Like train cars lined up neatly in a row.

Illustration by Helena Jepsen

Subway Poem 1

These skittering people on the train

Avoiding the berth of a huddled man

Fearful of his fear, his dissipation

The most helpless ever receiving the least help

4/20/2008

Illustration by Helena Jepsen

Subway Poem 2

When the doors slid open

He left his seat and looked back

To confirm he’d left nothing behind

Though some years before he left his spirit

But did not pause to confirm its disappearance

4/21/2008

Subway Poem 3

Her on the subway reading Jung

Eyes aflutter, though, never settling

A permanent smile, dark eyebrow arched

Betraying the flit and flicker of her mind

Copper fingers interlaced, yet trembling

Her heart astir with Spring

4/23/2008

Subway Poem 4

Friday riders relax their bearing

Shunted homeward, slim smiles tweak their lips

Their heads turn to address and inquire

Though still isolated by the slender strings

Threading their chosen soundtrack through tender tympani

Still, more aware of the rich, heterogeneity enveloping them

4/25/2008

Subway Poem 5

She clutches the rail with striated bird hands

Lips pressed together tight to ward off the thrusting crowd

The floral silk of her blouse espouses

A more colorful demeanor than her gray countenance

Good for health, says the white lettering on her crisp, green bag

Her other, seated across from her

Free of fear

Her lipstick has run into her chin

Spittle flies with each other word

As she addresses her seat mate

I’ll fly, she says, I’ll fly, I’ll fly!

5/5/2008

Subway Poem 6

On the subway, across from me

I see a girl with the same scar

as I.

A compound fracture to the radius on her left arm

leaves its tracks down the otherwise smooth skin

of her arm.

We have something in common.

And nothing in common.

6/7/2009

Subway Poem 7

Young European girl, twenty-something

slouching beside her hooded friend

She sucks her thumb

And I smile

Hoping she sees it

not as a smile of derision

But of understanding

I know, it’s a big city

Filled with buzz, jitter, and judder

Like so much else of the world

7/5/2009

Subway Poem 8

When two trains follow each other

beneath the ground,

the impact for a moment is such that

We are each human fish in an aquarium

staring across the few scant feet

to the human fish in the aquarium

just beyond our group

but eternally out of touch

before slipping up and away into the darkness.

8/4/2009

Subway Poem 9

Two older men on the train,

Reflecting each other across the aisle

Graying, grizzled with beards

Clothing distressed, huddling

Their belongings in bundles at their feet

Invisible to others, brothers to themselves

When one spoke, the other attended, responded

Used to being unlistened to himself

11/03/2009

Subway Poem 10

There’s a man at the foot of the subway stairs

Angular, thin, white with graying hair

All pale against the pool of blood about him

And splashed upon the wall

He has fallen

After the sirens

A woman descends the stairs slowly to help him

It seems she will never arrive

11/02/2009

Subway Poem 11

The one F train driver

Her tones a calm, smoky jazz

You all have a good week, a lovely day, she says

And for once we think, yes, we will

Thanks to her

Believing in us

05/26/2010

Subway Poem 12

Red riding hood sits slumped on the F Train,

No longer little nor lithe

That hood definitely protection

Against whatever wickedness she’s weathered

Via the wolves of the world

Her eyes shut against the elements

Us

06/19/2010

Subway Poem 13

Standing at one end,

looking down the morning train,

as it emerges from its tunnel

onto the sunsplashed Manhattan Bridge.

The faces of these travelers,

largely calm, impassive,

as they align this carriage,

their bodies gently wavering,

like so many grassy stems in a subaquatic passage.

08/06/10

Subway Poem 14

The D train stopped aloft the Manhattan Bridge

Just up the Brooklyn side of the hanger

A young woman slumped to the floor

A police officer on board would stand before her

As one woman traversed the carriage,

Looking for an emergency alarm

While another yelled, “Forget about it! Just forget about it!”

And there you had it

The entire human condition

Encapsulated in a steel tube

Hovering, hesitant over the East River

08/31/2010

Subway Poem 15

To behold actual human zombies

Simply stand at the edge of a New York City subway platform

Then watch them shamble towards you

Hurrying to insert themselves between you and the oncoming train

Arms flailing, legs awkwardly flapping

They must. Reach. The vessel.

As the doors slide open, they crash by you

And into the carriage ahead of you

Collapsing through the exiting citizenry

To seize a seat or a position

To be first

Pity the frail human in their way

10/18/2010