If You Are Waiting to Cross the Tracks, Wait to Do It for One Moment at Least after the First Train Is Gone

It was raining and gray from Kensington to Frostburg, blue sky from Frostburg to the Belmont/Guernsey County line in Ohio, increasing gray and windy to Zanesville, leaf-storm windy and rainy from Zanesville to Bamgier, pouring rain from Bamgier to Granville to Bamgier to Zanesville. Gorgeous. Typing this Saturday morning in the breakfast lounge of the Holiday Inn Express in Zanesville as is tradition now on these trips. Fox News was on the big screen, the morning clowns humping Mitt Romney. Everybody in the lounge groaned. The breakfast manager switched the TV to MSNBC. The morning clowns there played a clip of Bill Maher making fun of Romney's stiffness when kissing his wife after last debate, everyone in the lounge groaned. The hotel breakfast manager, an elderly gentleman whose pompadour matches in grandeur Herbie Haft (google Herbert Haft; for back-story ask Hamster), turned to everyone and said, I can't wait for this shit to be over. People clapped, hooted. Hey, we missed dying by three yards yesterday, a car struck by a truck on east 68 the first downhill out of Cumberland spun across the median, I swerved at the last moment, the car smashed into the car right behind me, stopped a car doing 65 flat. I called 911 and continued west. Songs from yesterday's soundtrack.

• Nonetheless, links.
• Nosty pays another call.
• Surveillance state.
• Ladies and Gentleman, the Chair of the Democratic National Committee.
• A contradiction in terms.
• Whose ox is being gored.
• Heat #6.
• Of course Mitt Romney is a mendacious sack of bullshit.
• The purpose of voting.
• Capitalism as existentialism.
• The worst has yet to come.
• The Price is Right: A Torture Wheel of Fortune.
• Things you might have missed.
• A joke from god.
• Hey! Did you know Washington DC has a professional soccer team? It's true, they have a home game tonight, one in which United might clinch a playoff birth before a sellout crowd that won't include me. Planet wins. Pray for a home playoff game please. 
• Randal's latest playlist.
• What do composer anniversaries achieve?

ONE TRAIN MAY HIDE ANOTHER

Kenneth Koch

In a poem, one line may hide another line,

As at a crossing, one train may hide another train.

That is, if you are waiting to cross

The tracks, wait to do it for one moment at

Least after the first train is gone. And so when you read

Wait until you have read the next line--

Then it is safe to go on reading.

In a family one sister may conceal another,

So, when you are courting, it's best to have them all in view

Otherwise in coming to find one you may love another.

One father or one brother may hide the man,

If you are a woman, whom you have been waiting to love.

So always standing in front of something the other

As words stand in front of objects, feelings, and ideas.

One wish may hide another. And one person's reputation may hide

The reputation of another. One dog may conceal another

On a lawn, so if you escape the first one you're not necessarily safe;

One lilac may hide another and then a lot of lilacs and on the Appia

     Antica one tomb

May hide a number of other tombs. In love, one reproach may hide another,

One small complaint may hide a great one.

One injustice may hide another--one colonial may hide another,

One blaring red uniform another, and another, a whole column. One bath

     may hide another bath

As when, after bathing, one walks out into the rain.

One idea may hide another: Life is simple

Hide Life is incredibly complex, as in the prose of Gertrude Stein

One sentence hides another and is another as well. And in the laboratory

One invention may hide another invention,

One evening may hide another, one shadow, a nest of shadows.

One dark red, or one blue, or one purple--this is a painting

By someone after Matisse. One waits at the tracks until they pass,

These hidden doubles or, sometimes, likenesses. One identical twin

May hide the other. And there may be even more in there! The obstetrician

Gazes at the Valley of the Var. We used to live there, my wife and I, but

One life hid another life. And now she is gone and I am here.

A vivacious mother hides a gawky daughter. The daughter hides

Her own vivacious daughter in turn. They are in

A railway station and the daughter is holding a bag

Bigger than her mother's bag and successfully hides it.

In offering to pick up the daughter's bag one finds oneself confronted by

     the mother's

And has to carry that one, too. So one hitchhiker

May deliberately hide another and one cup of coffee

Another, too, until one is over-excited. One love may hide another love

     or the same love

As when "I love you" suddenly rings false and one discovers

The better love lingering behind, as when "I'm full of doubts"

Hides "I'm certain about something and it is that"

And one dream may hide another as is well known, always, too. In the

     Garden of Eden

Adam and Eve may hide the real Adam and Eve.

Jerusalem may hide another Jerusalem.

When you come to something, stop to let it pass

So you can see what else is there. At home, no matter where,

Internal tracks pose dangers, too: one memory

Certainly hides another, that being what memory is all about,

The eternal reverse succession of contemplated entities. Reading

    A Sentimental Journey look around

When you have finished, for Tristram Shandy, to see

If it is standing there, it should be, stronger

And more profound and theretofore hidden as Santa Maria Maggiore

May be hidden by similar churches inside Rome. One sidewalk

May hide another, as when you're asleep there, and

One song hide another song; a pounding upstairs

Hide the beating of drums. One friend may hide another, you sit at the

     foot of a tree

With one and when you get up to leave there is another

Whom you'd have preferred to talk to all along. One teacher,

One doctor, one ecstasy, one illness, one woman, one man

May hide another. Pause to let the first one pass.

You think, Now it is safe to cross and you are hit by the next one. It

     can be important

To have waited at least a moment to see what was already there.