(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)