Poetry writes itself
Yeah
Especially
When you are trapped in a train
That’s obviously too small
Too less capacity
For the expected amount of people
The timetable changed
But possibly
Nobody has witnessed
That people still want using the rails
Trains are not coaches
That move empty
Inside rural landscapes
Whose transportation was reduced to cars
Cars
And cars only
The German public traffic economy
For years makes sure
That all the other transportation options
Are made obsolete —

A litte time ago
There was Lucius Cornelius Sulla
After fighting his enemies in Rome
He dictated new laws
He was
What we would call today
A liberal
He hated the popular people
With passion
But was rational enough
Not to eliminate their tribunes
He just eliminated their functionality
The tribunate still existed
But it basically was
The end of the political road
For young aristocrats
Stupid enough
For taking charge —

Now jump back with me
On the road to nowhere of today
Where empty coaches with useless timetables
And fully inhabitated trains
Going through the rural parts of Eastern Germany
There are luxury, high-speed trains on rotten tracks
Going from one big city to another one
Non stop without taking the moaning population on board
And so we remember Eschede
And wonder
Why doesn’t it happen more often
The next terrible railway accident
Is already in the making
The people out there
Working their socks off
And so they’ll make mistakes
Together with a rotten infrastructure
It’s a toxic mixture
That only needs the last step
This last drop of non-spilled oil
This one tired worker
Misjudging a red light for a green
And then it happens —

Many people will die
But if it’s not a high-speed train
Going from one big city to another
Nobody will seriously care
The small trains will just have even lesser capacity
With even more people using them
The coaches will finally be omitted
More cars will be released onto the streets
It’s fatal for traffic
And the rural population
But it’s politically wanted
By the liberals
Sulla would be proud.

        © Dominik Alexander / 2023
        © Pexels (image)