Demos & Memos: The Night Train

Cycle 12 Day 9. Wednesday, April 15th. 03:39 in the morning.So, a poem—an idea for a poem—came to me upon waking.And I will now read it to you:The Night TrainThe night train is burning the midnight oil,Racing down the tracks, in hot pursuit of facts,lost to the fact that it is dark along these tracks.It’s dark in these depths, The darkness is whispering: lay still and just rest, But the darkness then channels a scream of unrest.The conductor is pressed. Hard-pressed for thoughts,Streaming and steaming,Where once there was naught,In deep sleep so soothing, which inner peace brought.But peace is hard bought, and peace is hard fought.The night train keeps burning the midnight oil,Thoughts and fancies stack to the ceiling in a pile, like nuggets of coal,I shovel them into the furnace, and they turn to nuggets of gold,Nuggets of my soul.Nuggets for the bold.The bold and bright,Who keep the light,Shinin’ oh so bright,And have their sights set to delight,And maintain that most jolly sprite, Even when wandering through the night,When faced with odds that aren’t so bright,When fate, at odds, strikes down with might—a lightning rod… [Still work in progress here…] ... The night brain is burning the midnight oil.Despite being drained from its daily toil, at night it rests in the most fertile soil.Fertile, but sometimes so dense with nutrients that it would have most names on these plains refrain - recoil, From going any deeper.These cells are filled with sleeper cells,Revelling in rebellion whilst reining in their inner stallions,Dormant, not yet valiant,But soon to wake at the wake of dawn,And rub their eyes in early dawn,Then grab their shields and grab their spears,And stand up tall, though gripped with fears,Prepared for the battalion. As the night train rages on over the sleepers.The night brain keeps burning the midnight oil.Dendrites stretching out their limbs, Connecting chains - so long, yet so thin, The one with most connections wins.Like a freight train, this chain stretches on and begins, Its journey from Vladivostok to Berlin, A network of interconnected bins,Urban jungles, cans of tin,Nodes in an empire of the darkness within. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit victorsalander.substack.com