The wheels are forever turning,

the fire never stops burning,

the headlight is ever gleaming.

the whistle is always screaming,


Its timetables haven’t been rationed

yet it stops at every station,

with nooses upon the telegraph poles,

making calls for departed souls,


an engine of ghastly fire and acrid smoke,

it ruins the ground, the air it chokes,

leaving a wake of coal and oil and flame;

soon a sea of ashen barrens and distant shame.


The engineer knows not where it’s going,

only that the train must keep flowing,

an iron fortress that cannot be subsumed;

an industrial evil that must consume.