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)

 

Terminus

Cheryl Garner 2013 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And so it seems this all must end

In blue and gold and shattered glass,

In metal coils around the throats

Of mottled lives between the cracks.

 

What route I took I just don’t know,

It seemed so long and hardly changed:

No matter how, the rains will fall,

The storm will come and I will fall.

 

I have no questions left to ask.

Explosions in the sky can pass,

Explosions take my eyes and pass,

Explosions bring this to its end.

 

The summer lost its heart to me,

But I was cold and told it so.

 

Journal Entry (18/11/1998)

Because I was early this evening I am cramped on to an earlier train than usual. Because I was early out of work I will have half an hour waiting in Steeton for a bus. I could have waited inLeedsstation, but I had to run to catch this train. No time for well thought through decisions.

It is hard to hide this as I write. I have very little room for my arms because I am in the middle of a seat supposedly made for three (three children it must have been). This was because I was early, so early I was late.

It is hard to hide this, but important that I do, though why it is I am not exactly sure. I write to be read, after all.

Writing can be secret, can be about secret things, of course, but the act of writing should be. Most definitely. It is a question of time: time for the reading of others.

Control can be incipient, silent, shy. Writing kind of demands that kind of control. It is quiet until it is finished.

 

 

Photograph by Cheryl Garner (2013)

Poem by thecheesewolf (2013)

Train Journal entry by Gavin Jones (1998)

 

 

station

Cheryl Garner (2013)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These autumn rains, these Hopper blues,

These destinations, stations passed,

These memories which have yet to form,

These tricks which gather up the night.

 

Each isolation – neon stained –

Is captured in its gleaming feint,

Is held, unique, in slow decent:

From state to state, from hope to spent.

 

And you: I wonder how you took

The morning – made it live again,

And glow again (if only once,

If only through electric eyes).

 

You took a crossing point in time,

And found a voice for rain and light.

 

Journal 16/11/1998

Every week day morning, for 34 minutes, the regime of the train. A single distance, a single mind? Pass that new factory, that new hill, that familiar supermarket: a unique aspect at each glance. But what “each glance”? There is only one.

Meeting unexpectedly someone you know. Get on at xxxx station… I know that person… do I…? where the hell from…? It’s (notice the bag she is carrying: Cockburn Street, Edinburgh). But what “each glance”? Face, hair, bags, face. Puzzled expression: mutual. This is not a film: no edits, no frame. Lots of discountings: this is background. I see the station, but concentrate on listening to the person speaking (by staring at her mouth and eyes). I am seeing words form.
The train is going to be late. Work can wait.

 

 

Image by Cheryl Garner (2013)

Poem by thecheesewolf (2013)

Train Journal Entry by Gavin Jones (1998)