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)

 

 

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)

 

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)

 

 

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)