The Magpie Sings the Great Depression:
Selections from DeWitt Clinton High School's Literary Magazine, 1929-1942

Fantasy On a Subway

Zoltan Jacob, '38

The Magpie, January 1937, v. 21, n. 1., p. 34.

        Stand at the back of the last car of a subway train . . .
        Look out into the blackness as it shoots screaming from all
sides of the car, and lengthens behind you . . .
        Only tiny lights to pierce the long stretches of darkness.
Bends and curves swallow up the furthest of these dull-eyed little
lamps . . .
        And always the night gathers around and beats its wings on
the car, streaking its way like a lighted phantom thru the passage . . .

* * *

We are in the car of the living—
The Past thickens around us, dotted only by little lights
kept flickering by the power house of memory . . .
We watch, shuddering, at the way we have come . . .
So much darkness—
Bounded on all sides—
Held to a track—to leave which means destruction.
So we are transported—
Carried on unknown tracks in this great, eternal clamor—
Somewhere in eternity's infinite vaults.

The Magpie Sings the Great Depression

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