Le Grand Depart

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.