On the northern line last night

    I chanced upon the strangest sight

as I took my usual seat

    in the clammy noisy heat.

A man sat opposite a little along

    just staring at an absent throng

for the carriage was empty apart from myself

    and he was perfectly still.

 

His coat was heavy and dark as night

    with his feet together as if held tight,

and as we drew up to Mornington Crescent

    I broke a silence so strangely unpleasant,

remarked how dimly the carriage was lit

    but he simply stared on as if in a fit,

and there on his face I noticed a mark

    and he was unnaturally still.

 

A small red stain quite round I saw

    the edges just a little raw,

and as the carriage gathered pace

    my troubled heart began to race

so unsettling was the sight

    in the recesses of the night

the tunnel like the road to hell

    and he was very still.

 

Then as the train went round a bend

    he simply seemed to calmly blend

into the background of the seat

    the pattern merging in the heat.

I  stiffly sat within the tomb

    or so it felt within the gloom,

my brain rejecting the apparition

    of the passenger on a ghastly mission.

 

Then unannounced, his head began

    to slowly turn, my eyes to scan

and then that stain began to spread -

    I sensed the presence of the dead.

As the train began to slow

    and Camden Town began to show

I forced myself to slowly rise

    and his face was desperately still.

 

On the platform's endless yaw

    I stayed quite still right to the core

and watched that seat that hurtled past -

    saw the gap freed up at last

that carried my memory like a sign

    that endless night on the northern line.