For fuck’s sake
then a rummage
of backpack zips
as his phone alert
raises its volume
during their fight
And she asks him
Where are you?
Just left Eridge
Where?
Just left Eridge – On the train
When are you here?
In a few minutes – In a few minutes – It’s running late
And nothing more is said
Tag: trains
Platform Five & Six
See it
See it
Say it
Say it
Sort it
Sort it
This is a security announcement
This is a security announcement
The next train on this platform
is the 15:41 calling at East Croydon
Gatwick Airport and Three Bridges
Remain behind the yellow line at all times
Remain behind the yellow line at all times
See it
See it
Say it
Say it
Sort it
Sort it
More Waiting Rooms – Please
[A prose poem]
East Croydon could be LGW or the upstart crow Milton Keynes station – each we passed through to BHX – those visited identikits of brand-stamped sub-city intersections – of yellow lines and low-hung fixed-font signs – there are no seat comforts – no – no more on any platform – no shuttable waiting rooms – no blistering braziers – a common risk in ’72 – when our choices were gas fumes or freezing – Provide us with indoor benches and free heat at connections – Do not risk-assess our comforts – Do not then tell us to stand and wait before the cold blasts of fast-passing services
14th February 2019
Held by a red signal in south London –
in a balloon of wifi – of library silence –
this being a price-hiked compartment –
a restricted remnant of empire days
still served up by rail franchisees
as our ticket collector mis-quotes WS –
Juliet’s soft words as cuffed banter
towards serving staff –
parting is a sweetest sorrow –
and he then regrets these modern times
of –
changes to language – to luv cld b not bad –
Then a roll forward like a sneaking suitor –
an incline takes us without that rumble
from diesel complaints – this carriage sways
over switched points – under lopped trees –
those leaf-spill hazards
alongside a thousand-thousand
other prunings met behind drawn curtains –
those many lovers’ shop-cut flowers
presented in cellophane in south London
on this Saint Valentine’s Day
EDITED 170219
The Commuters
Our Ikea-padded cells
should guard us from self-harm –
but instead they fuck with us
in cubes of coupled calm
Each of us fitfully sleeps
in our over-familiar beds –
we pick at our clipped wings
feathering empty nests
We rise to expected alarms –
our daily rude refrain –
to stumble without consciouness –
to queue for time-warped trains
In cattle trucks we stand and sway –
our iprods poke our eyes –
blinding us from seeing
the pastures passed outside
London Bridge – we rise to screams
as the wheels rub on the track –
we shuffle from the shouldered stalls –
spewed out – we can’t turn back
The Wedding Guest
Two contrails cross over Croydon
as a childish whispered kiss
a wedding party walks the aisle
of this train to London Bridge
The bride is dressed all in black
carrying a bunch of flowers
and her rich perfume fills the train
as she necks a bottle of cider
The twenty minute reception
of small talk
of drunken laughs
of the booze flowing as water
to her lips and to her heart
Virgin England
‘Get permission from the ticket office
to travel on this train’
sums up this queue-fat England
of intransigence and new rules
Here staff cannot show emotions
or make their own on-the-hoof decisions
The green biro’d ticket was waved on
an hour later by a shrugging millennial
Class resides on trains and in politics
those two parallel English antiquities
which feed off each other
and equally upset the low users of both
The woman serving in the galley
of processed food did so with a smile
That was my only uplifting Virgin moment
.
The Sign on Southern Railway
There’s a Samaritan’s helpline advertised on the platform
hanging from a lamp post on the sturdiest of wires
I think about the last hours of that American comedian
I picture him considering the place he will meet death
and try to uncoil his quick mind
as if such powers are really mine
It has to be such a certain thing because doubt won’t kill you
only the best of preparations
such as a strong hanging point
will see you through
Did he then worry about being found
or is that selfishness not allowed?
Is there a real risk of commuters throwing themselves under trains?
I step back from the edge as the train to London Bridge
slices through the taught cord which now gives
Trainspotters
Each line is filled,
he is cross-referencing,
the train spotter marks
which model and when:
but his life speeds past,
one without note,
except when he’s pushed,
and then we know it:
Delays to services
due to body on the line.
The last thing he wrote
was ‘8:59’
Sped
Only for a short burst
between-stations,
this is Britain’s
remains of greatness,
which, back then, required
the re-fixing of time
(to keep up with our ingenuity);
but now, we amend our expectation
to this unfixable lateness
Picture: @RobKRead
MIKE BELL | 10,000 Poems 