The following is a poem I wrote in 1984, soon after returning from a long train trip to Kerala in India.

I went for a clackety-clack-click rumble train trip,
tripping, rolling, clackety-click-clack
swaying,
Going my way, north, to Delhi, from Kovalam.
I met some
foreigners, four, fast, familiar, friends.
They had to Kovalam
come clackety-click-clack to fun,
and run,
in the sun,
to get undone,
under the clackety-click, high sun in the Kerala sky,
their clickety-clack lives melting, bleaching,
as they go beaching,
always reaching
for the clickety-clack secrets of the Indian villages,
stopping just short of pillages,

(they leave those clackety-clack to their brother tourist
who seeks the pitiful poorest
of the poor.
to cure their first world clickety-clack blues.
Blackened, blended, they fuse and use the peaked power
pulsing-- ping! zing! through the wires clackety-clack
But call them hypocrites or call them liars,
you'll clackety-click see their fires,
"Our wealth and waste are ours alone,
if they want some, they can get their own!")

Clackety-click
clickety-clack
And so we bitch as we roll back,
to Delhi
to home and all that Coke,
It's such a joke,
a jest, a jive,
for us to assume such a live,
living for just some day, and not too long,
in this way, as they do,
as they clackety-click pass away
behind the train, into the night,
and we clickety-clack, move off, in light,
illuminated and luminesced,
all hardships are clackety-click, recessed
beyond our beds, our berths, beyond.

They lie there sick
clickety-click
they eat their rice and onions
with lots of spice
and pick from their hair
the tiny lice
that crawl and creep
and scritch and scratch.
clackety-click
clickety-clack
But we go back.
Home.