A traveling locomotive on a course bound for nowhere.

Never does it stop; a sound heard echoing in the night.

Where it started is a story unknown; where it’s headed,

No ending be told.

Dark and quiet except for the whistling in the night and

The rumbling train.

To look into the windows there’s not a thing, a person to see.

When again it comes back around, then a closer peek there will be.

The dead train becomes its name, no way to stop it, why that name?

It disappears, and then it’s seen roaring down some railroad tracks.

Never a face, no one walking around, no engineer guiding this train.

The lights flash from the darkness when it sees me watching.

A first stop it will make since last year’s fatal day.

I’m taking a trip, my ticket in hand,

All aboard! yells the conductor, the dead train takes me away.

Keith Garrett