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)

 

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)

 

 

platform

Cheryl Garner (2013)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So here I am in hope again,

Between the layers of sleep and thought,

The shade and space and hidden lights,

Between the shifting lines of doubt.

 

I sit in carriage four of five,

And drift through waking depths of dreams.

I wait for certainties of time

To close my eyes, or shake me out.

 

He sits on platform three and stares

Into an emptiness of clouds.

The train – not his – has mirrored glass:

He sees himself – he’s looking old.

 

I watch that world disintegrate:

What could have been and what was not.

 

Journal Entry (17/11/1998)

Writing does strange things with duration. Helene Cixous’ wish to write in the time of life is eminently manageable, if the time of life is flexible enough a concept to cope with the different durations.

Time isn’t all glimpses of magpies from speeding trains. For example, the magpie took about a second to pass from my vision, but at least ten seconds to write about. I’m still thinking about it, still revisiting it. Is it still in my mind? It was sat on a fence post, next to an orange traffic cone, next to a disused sports’ ground. Writing primacies the aspect, lends credence, not to a nounal world view, but to a “significant detail” world view. In the passing time of duration x, we are conscious through many durations. Writing is a stillness, not in contradiction with, but in compliment to, the rush of other durations.

 

Image by Cheryl Garner (2013)

Poem by thecheesewolf (2013)

Train Journal entry by Gavin Jones (1998)