Flying Island

Railway Car      by Patrick Kalahar The empty railway car abandoned on a siding complains of neglect, but rusting steel rails hunkering in their bed of stone are driven to silence by stakes of iron. The tall grasses bend eastward toward the sun in obeisance or mockery, their thin, delicate blades licking like tongues against wheel and car rasping tales of death— or perhaps it is only the wind The railway car denies death. It holds within every journey it has taken, the silent thoughts and voices of every passenger are inscribed, eternal in air demanding— it is not only the wind Patrick Kalahar is a used & rare bookseller who lives and works with his poet/novelist wife Jenny in an old schoolhouse in Elwood, Indiana. He performs readings of and dresses as Edgar Allan Poe, participates in local poetry groups, and was interviewed and appeared in a Public Broadcasting television documentary about the Ind...