January 2017
Robbi Nester
rknester@gmail.com
rknester@gmail.com
I am a transplant from Philadelphia, PA and retired college educator who has become part of the thriving poetry community of Southern California, which includes some of our fellow VVers. I keep myself busy writing, doing open mics and other readings as often as possible, practicing yoga, and enjoying the gorgeous climate in this area.
Author's Note: This poem was originally published in Northern Liberties Review, then appeared in my book, A Likely Story. It is about the train I rode so often as a kid growing up in Philadelphia.
Author's Note: This poem was originally published in Northern Liberties Review, then appeared in my book, A Likely Story. It is about the train I rode so often as a kid growing up in Philadelphia.
The Frankford Elevated Train
“I realized intuitively that the subway was a harbinger of an entirely new
space-time relationship of the individual and his environment.” ----- -Buckminster Fuller
Boarding,
I am full of voices,
turning in my seat
to watch the river,
the Delaware’s brown flow.
Fairmount
Two dull-lipped women
find a seat. They speak,
something muted
with movement.
Their hands
are spoked with veins.
At the river’s edge,
garbage trucks grind.
Girard
Dark labyrinths of windows,
one still face.
Courtyards, a church
and a school. Outside,
the sky closes,
a circular wave.
Berks
Tarred roofs.
Spires and antennae
rise in narrow rows.
Close enough to touch,
a fretwork of windows,
open or broken open,
the hum of someone
singing an old song.
York and Dauphin
The wires stretch like swimmers,
speak a secret tongue, black
and flat, crackling leaves.
Though it is summer,
the pool waits, an empty mouth.
Huntington
Here a man boards, without eyes.
His face holds light.
Rain falls in flat wet drops.
Somerset
The name I always
read wrong—Summering,
Somerfield, Something.
Allegheny
Banks on both sides.
I sit on the edge of my seat,
reading “Dr. Cool #1” on all the walls.
Someone beside me slips out.
Tioga
Trees.
Ginkos’ frilled leaves,
a thousand luna moths.
Erie-Torresdale
The day the train fell
it was here.
People clutched at legs,
falling poles.
One second before the ground,
the last smoke.
Now when I pass here,
the train shifts and slows.
On the track ahead, workers
wave us past.
Church
Broken windows, stained
with soot. A steeple
with no bell. The train
screams by.
Margaret and Orthodox
Unloading.
I turn once more, eying
faces pressed like wings.
No wheels now.
The circling slatted door,
the stairs, then the street’s
long spiral, a track.
©2016 Robbi Nester
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to tell him or her. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is the beginning of community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -FF