Wandering

(Cheryl Garner, 2013)

 

I took a train to see the world.

Each station brought me something new:

An angle never seen before,

A chance of colour, shape and sound.

 

I don’t suppose you saw me go:

Just couldn’t see the world like that,

Just couldn’t see the grey old dust

As tracks which led to somewhere grand.

 

I took the train and saw the sky.

You’d never know the blue I saw.

A destination never holds

The freedom of a wandering heart.

 

I don’t suppose you missed me much:

For after all, to you I’m dust.

 

Journal Entry – November(?) 1998

I broke my journey today. Not because of any whim, simply that the train we were on was late, and I figured I might be able to catch a faster one from Bradford.

People seemed lost, or panicked. I hadn’t seen them like this before, and I wondered what would happen if the trains just stopped for good. how would they cope? For that matter how would I cope? There seemed to be some kind of togetherness breaking out, but it was kind of with a sense of irony…

…I don’t believe this is only a matter of months since all that happened, and nothing yet seems to have settled…

 

Photography by Cheryl Garner (2013)

Poetry by thecheesewolf (2013)

Train Journal by Gavin Jones (1998)

 

 

Passengers

(Cheryl Garner, 2013)

So who is there to hear our sighs?

Our tears will go unnoticed here,

And we will pass, as angels pass:

Unseen and in the end, unloved.

 

And who will take this track with us?

Another lonely soul who sits

And traces light on passing clouds,

With nothing left to lose or win.

 

And we will fill out hollow eyes

With all the dust which fell from stars.

And we will cling on to the hope

That someone here will share our weight.

 

So who is there to dream of us,

To hold our hand, to make this stop?

 

Journal Entry – 25/11/1998

Is this what you want from an autobiographical passage? Anecdotes and blood, history and soil? Well, my tracks are not to be found here, in the earth of lineage. The chances of there being a bench left with my name on it are limited. Such, as they say, is life.

I knew you. I thought I did. But maybe all that was there was a mirage – a fear that beneath all of the love and (worse) sadness, there was simply a hollowness. A nothing. I thought I knew you, but maybe all I knew was my own attachment to indifference.

 

Photography by Cheryl Garner (2013)

Poetry by thecheesewolf (2013)

Train Journal by Gavin Jones (1998)

 

Between Stations

(Cheryl Garner, 2013)

 

I sit between points A and B,

And watch the rooks begin to roll,

Across the fields, all scattered leaves.

We pass them by, they fill my mind,

 

With thoughts of wings and freer things.

We journey by the forest track

And see the beech and maple turn,

With golden branches trailed in shade.

 

And yesterday will come again,

With all the love and hope alive,

And none of this will then have been,

And we would take a different train.

 

I sit between points A and B,

I close my eyes and feel life pass.

 

Journal Entry – 15/11/1998

The train is quiet on the morning. In the evening it is noisier – full off chatter. I wish I didn’t know the reason for this.

The fields are full of birds today… rooks, a few magpies, starlings in gangs. The starlings are gathering for the winter. They will probably head off into one of those enormous roosts sometime soon. The fight out there will soon become deadly serious. We are all aware of it.

I’m not sure what music I would listen to today – if I could. For once in my life, music would not make a difference. It’s not going to change things.

 

Photography by Cheryl Garner (2013)

Poetry by thecheesewolf (2013)

Train Journal by Gavin Jones (1998)

 

 

Train Leaving

(Cheryl Garner, 2013)

That lost, bewildered look she loved:

So why, today, was he a wreck?

“Forget the night”, she said again.

They fell in drops about her feet,

 

Those heavy tears, they fell inside.

She made her smile for one last time:

It formed a line about her lips

Which wasn’t there the day before.

 

The first he knew she’d walked away,

A rueful cast upon her frown.

So there he stood, alone and cold:

He wished he’d worn a better shirt.

 

He wished he had a clever line.

The platform span and she was gone.

 

Journal Entry (24/11/1998)

The rain is falling heavily today. We’ve had days of frost in the mornings, but today it’s grey and a little misty. The people are mainly huddled under the covers in the station. Even the ones who prefer to be on their own first thing. There is such a loneliness about the place today. I’m writing and my breath is steaming up the window so I can’t see out. Everything seems still (even on the train). I think things might be about to change in some way.

 

Photography by Cheryl Garner (2013)

Poetry by thecheesewolf (2013)

Train Journal by Gavin Jones (1998)

 

flight

(Cheryl Garner, 2013)

 

And into air I spin and twist:

I never knew my scattered world

This high, this bright, this burning light.

And down below they swirl in blue.

 

The forests and the fields, they flow.

Their dizzy hearts, their green and grey

Are fading out, escaping from

The boxes and the traps we built.

 

And here, I hang on cirrus lines,

On eddies at the edge of space,

In jouissance, in points beyond

The passing earth and all it was.

 

It slips away: a distant star,

A point of light in boundless light.

 

Journal Entry – 23/11/1998

The privacy of my writing is becoming of greatest importance to me. I contort myself into all kinds of shapes so that people cannot read. It is not that I am ashamed of the words I write, nor that I am particularly bothered by people reading. It is simply that I cannot be sure what I am about to write. You see the words come to me, not me to them. I am not in control, am merely a receiver. From where they come I’m not overly sure. For certain it is not this place, this time. They simply pass through me and on to the page. This subject is, of course, circular here. Like this journey. It will – all things being equal – be a return.

I find all the greatest points in life follow this pattern. And they are not for me to question, merely to receive.

 

Photography by Cheryl Garner (2013)

poetry by thecheesewolf (2013)

Train Journal by Gavin Jones (1998)

 

 

off switch

(Cheryl Garner, 2013)

He sat alone in carriage four

And felt the depths inside his world:

It fell away and left him hung,

Some music making pointless sounds.

 

He saw the train in hidden ways:

In colours, shapes and sorrow dreams.

He saw it as it really was:

A metal box bereft of tales.

 

The other people on the train

All tried their best to look so calm,.

He felt them panic all around:

They looked for something true to hold.

 

He closed his eyes, the music played:

Too much to take, he switched it off.

 

Journal Entry – 21/11/1998

Just closing my eyes and being at least honest to myself about my thoughts.

On the front of a newspaper: another loss of innocence. The person next to me is marking primary school classwork.

Maybe to escape, to break from the inwardness. To find new areas to write into, to run into (or from). This page has ceased to be an environment for ideas, for anyone. And who am I now? A presumed me? An overt me – the one they all know? To find a new voice which – by its very dishonesty gets closer to the truth. Can I write away the tension in my neck? Can I make the world in my image – or find instead a new world. I know I shouldn’t be afraid: all is all and always was.

 

Photography by Cheryl Garner (2013)

Poetry by thecheesewolf (2013)

Train Journal by Gavin Jones (1998)

 

commuter

(Cheryl Garner, 2013)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ll see her standing in the rain.
The place, the time: they never change.
She hugs her bag in front of her,
Her toes are on the yellow line.

It’s rare to see her raise her head.
On days like this her hair is wet
And darker than its usual brown.
She stares on to the tracks, unmoved.

For years we’ve shared the same routine:
She stands, I wait – anticipate
Her being there, existing there -
A confirmation of our lives,

And how our lives are drifting by.
Her toes are on the yellow line.

 

Journal Entry – 17/11/1998

Where does this fear come from… the fear of travel? Every day a journey, there and back. A movement through space, there and back. But can’t escape myself and neither can anyone else.

 

Photograph by Cheryl Garner (2013)

Poem by thecheesewolf (2013)

Train Journal by Gavin Jones (1998)

 

Soliloquy

Cheryl Garner (2013)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The light was dreaming for the swans:

A morning mist, an autumn drift,

For necks to lift and court their kiss.

I wonder how I’ll break the news.

 

The leaves beneath my feet were soft,

But dry despite the time of year:

It could have been the perfect walk.

We are apart – so nothing’s changed.

 

I close my eyes and count to ten,

And nothing’s changed: it never will,

No matter how you try to hide.

This train pulls further from that past.

 

And closer to the end of things.

Oh god: the beauty of those swans.

 

Journal Entry (18/11/1998)

As people leave the train I have more space to retreat into, more space to make space in. I am now in close proximity to the woman sat opposite me. My proximity to her in eye across from eye only. We avoid contact. Her arms are crossed, resting on her satchel on her lap. I hold the book up at a defensive angle. The book rests on my brief case on my lap. She has black gloves and a large watch. It is 5.30.

Almost everyone has disembarked now. I am alone on my set of seats. Set “C”, says the note above the door. I fade into my writing and almost miss my stop. It is like waking hurriedly from a deep sleep.

 

Photograph by Cheryl Garner (2013)

Poetry by thecheesewolf (2013)

Train journal entry by Gavin Jones (1998)

 

 

Thought

Cheryl Garner 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She had a thought: that sky was true,

That sky was blue as eyes, as deep

As weeping in a loveless home:

Not cold, but crystalline it shone.

 

She had a thought: those lines were meant

As purpose, point and route to run,

Another means to fake escape,

Until the next direction pulled.

 

She had a thought: of someone trapped

As everybody else was trapped,

But who would see her questions asked,

By fists she formed as stations passed.

 

Her music played, the sky was sky,

She had a thought and let it die.

 

Journal Entry (19/11/1998)

Trivial details can release a whole range of associations, if they find a language. Some details, if approached incorrectly, remain stubborn, introverted, secretive. It is not that, of themselves, they are necessarily unconnected, simply that they have not been allowed the space and time and words to become what they could be.

People dream on trains: of escape, of love, of change, of being. They are a means of transport to somewhere else. They are melancholic. We sit and watch the world, move through it in sadness and contemplation. I love you. I feel you coming to me in every breath and somehow everything seems possible. I know you too will pass. That tree by the River Aire has never seemed so lost amongst its roots. I drift and play with time. Suddenly I am on a beach – could it be Brighton in spring? Or maybe it is a beach I have never been to nor ever will. The wind of a distant time blows through my hair. And I will die alone on that beach. Not sad. Not in fear. But alone.

We approach the next station. There is an old man on the platform and a couple with a dog. Only the woman gets on the train. The dog looks puzzled as only dogs can.

 

Photography by Cheryl Garner (2013)

Poetry by thecheesewolf (2013)

Train Journal by Gavin Jones (1998)

 

 

platform

Cheryl Garner (2013)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So here I am in hope again,

Between the layers of sleep and thought,

The shade and space and hidden lights,

Between the shifting lines of doubt.

 

I sit in carriage four of five,

And drift through waking depths of dreams.

I wait for certainties of time

To close my eyes, or shake me out.

 

He sits on platform three and stares

Into an emptiness of clouds.

The train – not his – has mirrored glass:

He sees himself – he’s looking old.

 

I watch that world disintegrate:

What could have been and what was not.

 

Journal Entry (17/11/1998)

Writing does strange things with duration. Helene Cixous’ wish to write in the time of life is eminently manageable, if the time of life is flexible enough a concept to cope with the different durations.

Time isn’t all glimpses of magpies from speeding trains. For example, the magpie took about a second to pass from my vision, but at least ten seconds to write about. I’m still thinking about it, still revisiting it. Is it still in my mind? It was sat on a fence post, next to an orange traffic cone, next to a disused sports’ ground. Writing primacies the aspect, lends credence, not to a nounal world view, but to a “significant detail” world view. In the passing time of duration x, we are conscious through many durations. Writing is a stillness, not in contradiction with, but in compliment to, the rush of other durations.

 

Image by Cheryl Garner (2013)

Poem by thecheesewolf (2013)

Train Journal entry by Gavin Jones (1998)

 

field

Cheryl Garner (2013)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For years this field was lost in rain,

Unseen by moon and morning haze.

Its entropy a fade of green,

A negative beyond all space,

 

Ignored by all but heron’s wings.

It shed its paths as clues and rhymes:

Unnatural golds and hidden ways,

A loss which never formed a sky.

 

Yet here it is: a fragile myth;

A knowledge formed of what might be;

A place between; a knowing spell;

A line connecting distant hopes.

 

For once this world revolves around

This empty field, this broken crown.

 

 

Journal Entry (17/11/1998)

The forty minutes daylight I have time for.

Today it is below freezing. The sheep next to the platform were very still. Some standing, some lying down. They were widely scattered today (sometimes they bunch up). You’d have thought they would have huddled together today, it being so cold. But they are sheep.

For me in this frame of mind, writing and train travel have an affinity. The train is a stillness before the public dictated rush of my days’ work. Writing makes demands of time, slowing thought, concentrating and distending duration.

 

 

Image by Cheryl Garner (2013)

Poem by thecheesewolf (2013)

Train Journal entry by Gavin Jones (1998)