Reflection

(Cheryl Garner, 2013)

In you he finds the space to be,

So obvious for all to see.

You sit together on the seats:

You’re sharing thoughts, not needing words.

 

I watch you, wonder if you know,

And wonder if you’re growing cold.

He’s gazing down upon your hands:

You know he is: he often does.

 

And then, I’ve gone a step too far:

Not you, but me I’m reading here.

You catch my eye, then look away.

He only needs to touch your hands.

 

The thoughts pass on, the words have gone:

The two of us are miles apart.

 

Journal Entry – 20/11/1998

Appropriation takes up the task… will fail to understand and misuse… as in detail… there can be no understanding in literature. Appropriation is an inevitability, neither positive, not negative in itself… take, reuse and re-apply. Run the risk of misapplication… it is possible… inevitable.

I say to myself I understand the One Way Street. But life has its other… its motives are opaque.

 

Photography by Cheryl Garner (2013)

Poetry 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)