Le Grand Depart
Truro Station never felt so
threadbare cold
as my dumped case found a
pothole puddle
precisely splashing taxi-rank
water on my clothes.
Exit papers in a malicious man
bag muddle,
passport dancing the fantangle
with boarding passes,
flight reminders and kiss my
asses.
Now we’re off and running:
Competing in the customary
100 metre Olympic Dash platform
bridge event,
beam balance across the tracks,
floorshow with tepid coffee
half spent
while the suitcase gains points
for trampolining off cracks.
Crotch clutched by the bitter
April breeze
my skin sticks to handle metal
at minus two degrees.
On platform three, the
shivering audience,
double parked on brown benches,
cocks an ear:
acknowledge announcements with mute
intolerance
soundless cursing and silent
fear.
Frigid buttocks clench.
Constipated by the clock’s
failure to function
trammelled by the engine’s
paralysis at the junction.
Sodden thoughts sift their slow
way through the brain
as we look to each ignore the
other on the train.
Like, I mean, what’s the point
of Ivybridge
and who are they that do what
they do there?
Why the stop at Par for
Newquay, anyway?
And who is the stupid bloke
with no fare
interrogated incessantly about his
Tiverton Parkway awayday
on two separate lengthy
occasions by loud officials who care
for his safety? And are not troubled
that the bugger pays.
Definitely not. No, sir. We’ll
charge your ticket online,
for your security, sir,
protection,
sir, nothing to do with crime.
A weak struggling sun is thick
cloud tracing
as I’m shoved in the corner,
backward facing
at Taunton, by a front faced,
beany bonced
chin jutter-nutter, in seat
squirming nonchalance.
She munches putrid cheese and
onion in my ear
spraying chips while declaring she
feels queer,
hacksawing brayed laughter at
anyone near.
To please him, she got a room
at King’s Cross
he’s cancelled but she’s on her
way to check
in just in case any of us give
a toss: well, his loss.
Two fat sisters, clickety click
on phones,
plugged in;
opposite and together yet with
each other alone,
vacant grin, in silent sin, and
whatever world they are in
is preferable to the company of
their skin,
while Westbury wrestles with
the eye
and shards of vapour dash
across the sky
at Reading, a concrete grip of
the throat,
distant glimpse of departing
planes that float
to other worlds and places
leaving sad traces.
Quick shook speed, rushing
miles faster,
the imminent approach of the
grand departure:
black brick beckons now beyond
limelight fields
and all the trees that shield London
part, unveil and yield
up the acres of grim concrete
clinker.
Windowed reflections show some
old, frowned thinker,
a sad smile, yes, but at least
a smile of some measure,
forward looking back to the
years we will treasure.
