Down by the single track railway

into bracken, through barbed wire forced down,

thistles and long grass we went

to where those rusting tanks lay choked with hawthorn

and the refused offering of nettles -

supplicants face to face tops gone,

yellow tracery of arthritic controls welded by weather.

Wedged in where rodents made a home, dumped

in the sunset of world - weary time.

Combatants dried up, knuckled down.

We fought each other invisible through turret holes

lit by the myopic eye of the sun,

held down in a dream, mercifully spared

the blood spill, star burst of muffled fear,

And then anxious for home and the umbilical call

we caught the wild - eyed train.