The Old Choo Choo Train.

Im waiting down the aisle
For a friend and a train.
It never arrives on time,
It never leaves on time.

With Technology and Modernity
Punctuality equates only to Economy
civic mindness and courtesy forgotten,
Just like this train, gone in an era.

A sense of time reverse,
I feel it, it reverses back,
I went back in time, I really did,
Like they say, "Good ole' train times"

The train chugs slowly,
passing by the greens and the hills,
I wonder if my predecessors,
travelled the same way I did?

An old woman sighed,
"Train's never early, since 1964"
I gave her a look,
and she smiled at me; "yes boy, its true".

A man in his middle 30s pointed out,
There used to be sellers and peddlers,
Right by every station, nasi lemak and air bendung,
But now they're gone, "modern rules, so they say."

Morning in Kluang, but no time for coffee,
Noon in Ipoh, but no time for coffee,
Evening in Taiping, but no time for a kuih,
Night in Butterworth, but the train's end at the stop.

Sometimes I wonder, I do ponder,
In a train I talk and I chat,
But in a SUPER VIP bus, modern and technological,
The human touch is lost, deprived in "privacy".

I sit and talk with others in the train,
a grandfather with three cicits,
all happy and excited on their first train trip,
I sit and play along with them.

I see a youth in his teens,
absorbed in his own little laptop game,
Not bothered with the destination,
He's absorbed, in his own little world.

We all yearn to reach our own hometown,
"Balik kampung lah!" everyone says,
Once the train stops on their tracks,
One by one I whisk them goodbye.

But when we all reach our place,
Butterworth here I stay,
Everyone departs, leaves and say "Bye"
and the time snaps back to present.


2nd January, 2008.