philly subways and hell's bells

[amuse]

there was a voice in
my head a bell
on the door
and they wouldn't stop shouting
before you started screaming
when i heard "leave now"
i thought, well
can it be all that urgent
didn't want to rush out
of the subway like
a diver without O2
so i got up calmly

and the bells kept ringing
and ringing and
ringing
and the policeman evacuated-
well they tried to
evacuate everybody-
you'd already left

i was a few feet
in front of you
that one glimpse i got
and i wonder now
was that you i heard
screaming
telling me to get
off the train
because you
knew it was your last
ride the policeman said
there was too
much blood

you were no longer
a danger
to yourself
just a public
health hazard
i never heard
you scream,
never saw the knife,
never heard
your voice;

i still hear the bells.



*they signal that the doors are closing. this happened wednesday.

[mono]

Yikes, what occurrence do you write about, just out of curiosity?
The bells certainly play a significant role in the poem; I can see the public transit bells seeming much like funeral church bells. The imagery you present stuns and haunts me, making me shiver, especially:

i was a few feet
in front of you
that one glimpse i got
and i wonder now
was that you i heard
screaming
telling me to get
off the train
And the last line sounds very haunting, appropriately separated from the other strophes:

i still hear the bells.
Ugh, when I read that, I can feel it in my bones. :eek:

[amuse]

Yikes, what occurrence do you write about, just out of curiosity?
i can't find any archives from wednesday (made a mistake, it was the 13th, not thursay) - when i told my friend of the experience/protection last night she said she'd heard it on the news - i headed home after classes to change for an informal dinner meeting re: my new job. these teens - 16 to 18 i guess - passed by me; one was shirtless and extremely angry.
i didn't realize anything was wrong, really, but the expression on his face was forbidding. there were no loud threats, no obtrusive noises to let anyone realize a problem was going on, though i did notice a circle forming behind me...well not a circle, the subway was crowded, but a group of people looking inward. that's when i heard the words 'get off the train.' i don't know, to be honest if the boy lived or died; my friend gave the impression that he didn't. it was weird though, the way the bells began and didn't stop until long after i'd sat down outside...

i hope everything worked out for the best after the police came. i was also stunned to realize that given my proximity that's how people are killed by stray bullets, etc. and really shocked that the big guy upstairs was giving me impetus to move not because a knife would fly to where i was - that didn't happen - but to get me out of the vicinity in the first place so that any possibility of that would be erased. i didn't get on the next subway car, either. it was too crowded and i wanted a change of scene...

and it did seem in retrospect that it was the boy about to be stabbed was calling out...in a way...not really, but in a way. :(
edit. he was killed.