EXPRESS TRAIN NO. 89

By: Adele Gloria
May 3, 2024

A (pro- or anti-) science-, mathematics-, technology-, space-, apocalypse-, dehumanization-, disenchantment-, and/or future-oriented poem published during sf’s emergent Radium Age (c. 1900–1935). Research and selection by Joshua Glenn.

Wheels.
Strident
  strident
    strident
steel junctions
that are ill.
Tuftum
  tuftum
    tuftum
longing
bouncing
in the skull
within the flesh.
The desire for an unhearing rebellion
explodes
melts mutely
into the
cry
of the locomotive
that humanizes
gives birth
to a billow of smoke
black-azure-grayish
that greedy
begins to suckle
the milky whiteness of the clouds.
Circling speed
drills into the window
dives into the semidarkness
flattens itself
into the advertisements across the way.
“Purgative”
“Disinfectant”
“Talmone Chocolate”
These too dance
in front of our eyes
exasperating monotony
in the cadenced rhythm of the piston.
Jiggling
rhythmical methodical
like life in school
on the spiral springs
of study and play
of study and play.
To look out the window
is to browse through a souvenir series
of color postcards
at the speed
of who knows how many kilometers per
     hour.
In my soul
have a harmonic chiming of static
a suffering
most orderly, folded into four,
brushed with care
calmly adapted to its place
by an evil hand
after my tears had fallen.
Ingenuous murmur
of rain-regret
that has dripped into
my sentiments
opening
ever-widening
circles
of apathetic indifference
synchronized
with the laments
of the suffering rails
under the wheels
in their folly of speed.
Tuftum
  tuftum
    tuftum
exasperating noise
that will again
kill
the silence of this train car
where we the travelers
are like colorless rags:
“No smoking”
“Closed”
“Open”
“Alarm bell”
“Do not lean out”
***
A-pa-thy-thy-thy
mo-no-tony-tony-tony-no-

— Adele Gloria, an Italian Futurist poet, photographer, painter, and sculptor, published one book of poetry in 1934, FF.SS. “89.” Direttissimo (State Railroad No. “89.” Express).

A woman leaning out of a speeding train’s window, watches advertisements for chocolates and purgatives whiz by.

***

RADIUM AGE PROTO-SF POETRY: Stephen Spender’s THE PYLONS | George Sterling’s THE TESTIMONY OF THE SUNS | Archibald MacLeish’s EINSTEIN | Thomas Thornely’s THE ATOM | C.S. Lewis’s DYMER | Stephen Vincent Benét’s METROPOLITAN NIGHTMARE | Robert Frost’s FIRE AND ICE | Aldous Huxley’s FIFTH PHILOSOPHER’S SONG | Sara Teasdale’s “THERE WILL COME SOFT RAINS” | Edith Södergran’s ON FOOT I HAD TO… | Robert Graves’s WELSH INCIDENT | Nancy Cunard’s ZEPPELINS | D.H. Lawrence’s WELLSIAN FUTURES | & many more.