CANOSSA II

Diesel locomotives drive fresh from the works;
I find I prefer electric myself: this is what we get
When we abandon this Utopian pleasure

Which does not yet exist and is hence unavailable
For consumption like the gas traversing concrete
Measured territory where the invisible folk,

Those who have nothing, have only their discipline.
Communion wine unthinkable for those who are here,
From here; the terrible event in the vineyard burnt

By frost. And gliding down the wintry mountain,
All real enough, hardly defined by this deranged
Warrior’s ghosts, the railway trucks, the tracks

Fitting into the groove of the wheels; the points changing
On a light or a sigh, at midnight; red and green.