Traveller

(Cheryl Garner, 2013)

The seats are broken, nothing fits,

The angle of the light is wrong.

I wonder why the rain is dry,

I wonder why the words are wrong.

 

I left the station weeks ago,

Now float between two points, alone.

I feel the rail beneath my hands.

I taste the metal of the earth.

 

The sky has opened, slit its mouth,

And spilt its meaning on the dawn.

Its nether life has split my soul,

Down here between the buckled tracks.

 

I float between two points alone,

Between two worlds: there’s nothing more.

 

Journal Entry – 24/11/1998

what makes a journey worthwhile? Arriving at one’s intended destination, roughly on time? Well, that’s the last couple of seconds taken care of. But what of the journey? The whole Journey?

Of Ithaka…

Engagement… being in a time (not a place)… to live as a verb, to be and to do.

 

Photography by Cheryl Garner (2013)

Poetry by thecheesewolf (2013)

Train Journal by Gavin Jones (1998)

 

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)

 

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)

 

 

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)

 

Broken

(Cheryl Garner, 2013)

He broke his journey on that day.

No reason why, no thought before,

He simply picked his bag and left,

Four stops before the usual place.

 

And still without a question raised

He left the station, walked into

The town whose name he’d always seen

But never thought a real place.

 

He wandered on without a goal,

Just looking at the streets and shops,

And people on their way to work,

And none of it made any sense.

 

He stopped and stared up at the sky.

Same sky, same day: different life.

 

Journal Entry – 19/11/1998

Who is to say what is anachronistic and what “just is because it is”? The is nothing intrinsically odd about how fields are arranged: they “just are”. If one landowner tried to straighten out their field, all hell would – more than likely – break out. People protect what is, no matter how absurd, no matter how bizarre the chance configuration of elements that produced such a ridiculous status quo.

Writing on a journey changes the way that I travel. Rather than sporadic and unfocussed thoughts I fill my time with words I can return to. It imposes a form upon my thoughts, which are by their nature scatter gun. I look up from the book and it is a kind of freedom, as if I am stepping out into some kind of dream. Then I return back to the blue lines of the page, and I am back into reflection and into the strictures of the world of writing: the world of work.

 

Photography 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)

 

 

 

Thesmophoria (Song of Autumn) is a video poem by film maker Josh Parker to accompany the poem by thecheesewolf (aka Gavin Jones). The written series for this video poem can be found at:

www.thecheesewolf.wordpress.com

 

poetry copyright Gavin Jones 2012
video poem copyright Josh Parker and Gavin Jones 2013