Escaping memories I ran
To the setting of beginnings
In search of new encounters
A rescuer, an owner, a gentle
Word. Penn station had evolved
In years with my emotions,
Beguiling decadence lost
To opulence decay.
Pink granite covered in grime,
Glass filtering sunbeams had
Now turned light into grey,
Eerie shadows reflecting
My vanishing intentions,
Dwindling strength,
Waning hope.
The mellifluous cadence
Of alphanumeric flapping metals
That used to sooth me with dreams
Of arrivals and departures
Had been silenced for evermore.
Solari boards swapped
For liquid-crystal displays,
Even people had changed
Flaunting grimaces of disdain,
As they whispered rumours
Of terminal demolishment
To the benefit of a sporting arena
They would call The Garden.
I empathised with the unfluted
Columns of the Roman colonnade,
For I too had been deemed
Obsolete and inefficient,
A wreck no one shall retrieve,
To be suppressed, a panacea
For a collective consciousness
That would rather not see,
Turning blind eyes to me,
To cost-effective identity
Annihilation,
While Bobby freed of me
Won the New York State
Championship
At Poughkeepsie.
[Featured photo: Old Penn Station, NYC, designed by McKim, Mead, and White, completed in 1910 – demolished in 1963]