THE PREDICTABILITY OF DELIGHT
This is a little collection I put together in 2006.
It amalgamates two of my particular interests, poetry and railways - I hope you like the mix.
The Predictability of Delight
A man, a boy, a dog.
From the suburban gate the choices multiply:
Left, right, the Dirty Patch, the park,
The path by the railway.
Indifferent, the old dog plods.
No way holds rabbits, the best
That can be hoped for a cat
Or some old enemy.
Not so the boy. He
Is learning his world, what connects
With what, how, by walking these roads
And alleys we come home again.
He learns the Dirty Patch and its abandonedness,
The swings in the park,
And best of all, the trains, always,
Their predictability of delight.
This was my world, for a year or two.
My every morning treat to be out
With my grandfather, who had no aim for that moment
But to be with me, and walk the dog.
And I was too young to know
That this was anything but permanent,
That the man, the boy, would not always watch
The steam trains pass, the old dog follow after.
10.05. EUSTON-GLASGOW
tomorrow, as my train
cuts through the snow
on Shap Fell
I'll think of you
I'll throw you messages
in empty beer-cans
and hope that lorry-drivers
on the M6
will take them to you
inside it will be warm
like when I'm with you
and outside -
like before and after.
Haiku
a long journey
the same sheep running
as the train goes by
A Window on the World.
It’s dusk, when orange, red, and purple
pulse in the west, the sky pitted by sodium,
and headlights, tail-lights stack at junctions;
when the lights come on in houses
in back rooms seen from the train:
kitchens, televisions, an unmade bed,
already some Christmas trees.
Here a woman lays a table,
children do homework,
and there, a man in a vest, a cat sleeping.
We pass in the night like Bede’s sparrow,
granted a glimpse of warmth and feasting,
though whether to celebrate a birth,
or mark a death, is not revealed.
And what do they make of us,
staring into darkness like astronomers,
seeking the meaning of life
from the fleeing galaxies, a purpose,
a pattern, a reason for it all.
Faster, we enter a dark country.
By the time we slow again,
those other worlds are gone,
the next town shut off by nets and drapes
from the prying eyes of aliens.
Just as well; too long a clip of other people’s lives
encourages despair – the lights grown dim,
benighted, lost. We rocket on, our own reflection
all there is to contemplate..
Shunting
from the footbridge I watched the pick-up goods
dotting the wagons in the yard - domestic delivery -
a constant flow of the stuff of industry, the stuff of shopping,
twice a day arranged by steam engines, shunting,
the shuffling of trucks that men did,
to create order in that post-war, pre-wars world
while at home, my parents talked of Suez
and then, in '68, I stood in a field and watched
the last railtours of the last weekend of steam
thunder over the viaduct, sigh into the tunnel
while at home, on TV, the naked girl
in flames ran from the village -
another empire dropped its fire
we have moved on: horses, carts, steam engines
rest in museums, move us no more;
we can kill millions, ourselves, the planet:
it’s a better world, it’s a better war.
At The Tip of Platform Eight, Kings Cross, 1959.
the long slow slide past of the carriage side
my tongue deep between the lips of a banana sandwich
a "streak" ejaculates from the tunnel, spurting steam
I pull my Ian Allan from under my anorak
- it's a cop
ecstacy!
the real thing won't ever
be as good as this
Lechery on the Underground
Covert observation, on the Tube. The simple joys
of true appreciation. Not for boys.
Alas despair, deflation, drooped defeat;
the woman I am eyeing offers me her seat.
Announcement.
The senior conductor said, I'm sure,
"On leaving the train do not forget
to take all your longings with you."
All my longings !
Just let me find a case big enough,
a trolley, a porter, a taxi,
to bring them to your door.
Will you have space?
Will I be the unexpected guest
whose longings take over your spare room,
spill onto the landing,
surprise you, trip you up,
hurt you maybe?
I didn't want to hurt you.
I had done better to leave them
and come to you naked, without baggage,
leaving my longings to shuttle back and forth,
to London, Paris, Warsaw, Samarkand,
and all stations to Paradise, or Loss.
Doncaster.
Yes, I remember Doncaster. The train
stopped there, one evening in November;
and as we waited for further announcements,
or the whistle down the empty platform
"I wanted to be in York by ten," you said.
It seemed unlikely. It seemed you had to catch
the last bus to Easingwold, or things
would never be the same again.
Then, over the time it takes to find a driver, or a guard,
our lives unravelled, until you knew
how much I cried when our dog died,
and I, how you dropped an ice-cream, on the pier, at Ryde.
Oh I remember Doncaster, for there
was where we switched our mobiles off,
the train got under way again
and the next morning, long after
the first bus, we gazed at the winter sky
from my window; and at just that moment
they rang all the Minster bells,
and all the birds of Yorkshire sang.
[with due acknowledgement to Edward Thomas]
Getting There
After Köln, where the smell of cabbage drifted across the station,
we sped south, threading the tidy streets of Bonn
like an intrusion on a maiden aunt, until suddenly
vineyards appeared, knitted up the hillsides,
ribbed experiments in colour choice,
folded to let a castle (ruin, museum, smart hotel) adorn a rock,
while on the Rhine, dashed with white like a mountain stream,
Europe’s barges battered the waves.
Later, from a high apartment, we watch as darkness falls:
lights move and sway as if we are still voyaging -
an inland sea, a Brio set, crossing and recrossing the fields
with bright skeins of earnest travellers,
patterns in light, a country on the move.
And we move too, on clockwork trains,
past peaceful woods, fields of dry corn, and bare orchards.
We visit quiet towns, cafés with cakes you might die for,
or from; sausages and sauerkraut, paving, baroque altars,
and litter pre-sorted, purposeful, neat.
We drive, we visit friends, we see the sights;
but in one place, on a farm wagon a tarpaulin
and a name – Mengele – angel of death,
strikes like a shard of ice impaling the heart.
I think "farm machinery firm" – in vain.
Here lies the poison of history:
it chills these golden hills;
it lurks behind the smiles.
We cannot avoid what we inherit - but we must
know it for what it is and how it shapes us.
The town to which we return, have dinner
with friends who live there,
in ‘45 was rubble on the map.
It's Not Trainspotting, Exactly...
It's not trainspotting exactly:
It’s not the numbers, the cops, the wheel arrangements;
it's not their names from history and romance:
Lancelot, Guinevere, The Lady of Shallott,
no, but the system –
the way that things can, or should, interlock,
with everything finding an appointed path
at the right time,
all the junctions precision timed
like artillery at the Royal Tournament,
and each moment geared to the next
in a never-stopping dance with the clock.
That's what appeals, the never-resting order,
the signalman like God.
It's a way of life, applied off the tracks,
but one day, when the clockwork runs down,
between frenetic activity and meeting
self-imposed deadlines, a space appears,
and in the emptiness the wrong choices,
the signals passed at danger,
the missed opportunities, the long-held illusions
crumble, become a failure to act,
the path not taken, the life ignored.
The perfect system is not enough -
it misses the question "why?
and the answer -
which has little to do with how things work,
with being on time, or faster,
efficiency, or cost,
and everything to do, or say,
about the long slow nurturing of love.
On the train from Eindhoven to Venlo…
…we passed through America
in twelve seconds.
That’s it, I’ve done America –
it’s a small town.
Just time to read the sign
and reflect…
What’s in a name ?
Going Through
after all, it wasn't terminal:
on the other side there was another city
mirroring mine.
already I am in its suburbs,
abandoning the last stirrings of regret,
heading with what exhilaration, what fear,
what gathering speed,
into the unknown country
along remembered tracks.