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HS2 Is Not Coming Soon
I am sorry to announce,
but my long awaited
HS2 poem
has been branded
‘unachievable’,
and is at risk
of not coming out.
Successive
brutish reviews
say it won't deliver
soon, and
a poetic replan
should cut the
quatrains to haikus.
My sonnets
run obsolete,
villanelles
don’t complete,
and the limerick (below)
is the only...
Monday 14th August 2023 1:19 pm
AND THEN WAS THE WINTER
And then was the Winter
asphalt buried for months on end
hope frozen into a rictus
of discontent
birds all black, a St.Vitus dance
in greying skies vainly searching,
sludge in the veins
trees by fossilized distance framed
swans skating
telegraph poles bending low
draping sinews in dislocating snow.
Here at Buckingham (British Railways)
a good train delayed ...
Tuesday 3rd January 2017 11:11 pm
RAILWAY NOSTALGIA
it was that particular sound and sensation
a metronomic regularity of a train passing over
the rail joints
that bespake the rhythmic tale of the greed of speed
connecting the body to the soul
the soul of railway travel.
If that had been all
all that I remember
no steam tumbling
spent fluff of force in motion
no shriek of whistles
from mouths of monsters...
Tuesday 9th February 2016 10:23 pm
LONG DISTANCE EXPRESS
in its allotted platform the train sits,
waits.
I stare out through hermetic glass.
The preparations are completed.
The guard looks to the front
past the long flanks of the thoroughbred
steps back, the age - old green flag
simply waved, and the peremptory
whistle blown.
Imperceptibly the train breathes in and moves.
Like a babe in arms I am ...
Monday 18th January 2016 3:28 pm
RAMSBOTTOM BICKERDYKE AND Co
in the winter of 62/63
Ramsbottom Bickerdyke and co
went up to the icy wastes
upon Bleath Gill
like crows to the pecking
to set the locomotives free
from their cotton white beds
jammed right in
those belly fires burnt right out
all in a dream of compacted snow
Ramsbottom Bickerdyke and co.
Yorkshiremen under leathery sky
hacked away with blistering bre...
Tuesday 5th January 2016 11:19 pm
A RIDE ON THE FOOTPLATE OF LORD NELSON
Lord Nelson and me
on a summer's ride
in the crook of his arm
through the countryside
I stood while he huffed
and stood while he puffed
in his green shiny coat
he shovelled the miles
and hot he ran with his iron will
and we rode like the Lord
and we're riding still.
Monday 23rd November 2015 2:51 pm
MEMORY OF HEAT
The railway carriage, a lurching labyrinth
of doors corridors people crabbed in passing
had stopped with its locomotive up front
fuming with rage
held back by down signal on our cage
of viaduct leaning into a curve.
The day boiled, the rails hissed in waiting.
I looked at the street below active
and unaware of us.
Up close the racks and maps, smiling hills in paste...
Saturday 11th July 2015 10:06 pm
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