your life is a
poem on a train

the train’s station is
christened utopia and

the cars sing and
leap and gently sway

in your honor and
the rows of platforms

appear fully self actualized
and look like the

platforms from harry potter
only less british with

wider halls and marble
instead of common brick

the train is obsidian
and sleek with a

midnight blue shell lacquered
to shimmer like a

dragonfly’s wings hovering above
a kindly precious ancient

beetle only seeming to
move as slowly as

life to the innocent
ones or your favorite

memory laughing with friends
inside the train’s cars

smell vaguely of lilac
in the day and

cinnamon at night like
a person who is

truthful on the inside
and the outside but

still tries hard helping
everyone anyway and there

is a cat car
and there is an

aquarium car and a
lounge car where the

cats spend a great deal
of time plotting the

overthrow of the aquarium
car’s defenses and everyone

is happy and everyone
is drunk on poetry

in motion and high
on love remember please

your life is a
poem on a train

Paul’s latest book, “After Working Hours” was published in July of 2017 from NightBallet Press. He hosts Pandora’s Box Poetry Showcase at Deep Vellum Books in Dallas, Texas. His chapbook, Reject Convention, was published by Kleft Jaw Press 2015 and his poems have appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies since 1985. Richard Bailey’s film, “One Of The Rough” contains several of Paul’s poems and was shown at The Berlin Experimental Film Festival in December of 2016. He was chosen for the Ashbery Home School Residency in Hudson, New York. He and Reverie Evolving currently facilitate a Stone Soup Poetry workshop for The Writer’s Garrett of Dallas.