or, What Carol Saw From the Train, Part the Second

This poem was written as part of a workshop on Ekphrasis – writing poetry based on an image/artwork. My inspiration for this was the Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank.

Outside it is a perfect Saturday morning.
Inside this teeming train car, the
tensions of the work week have dissipated,
others arise to take their place.

There are babies crying
Fractious children ignoring their parents’
Shouted instruction to ‘sit their arse down!’
12B is on her phone,
starting her journey with an argument.
She is encouraged in this by the…committee of vultures
she travels with, who await with glee
the chance to pick over the carcass of her
soon-to-be-failed relationship.
(Frankly, if he DID “look at” your friend last night, Jessica
I can’t say I blame him.
You are a flippin’ nightmare.)

The front of this car is
filled with footie fans.
They boarded well-oiled.
Repeated sounds of tinnies being opened.
Inebriation does not wane.
Increasingly slurred chants of
“Could be worse, could be Scouse
Eating rats in your council house”
Man United must be playing Liverpool today.
When not denigrating their rivals to the west,
they tell boastful (and certainly untrue) stories
of their conquests,
using language no virgin,
or in this case Virgin Train,
should be subjected to.

How I envy you the Blissful Quiet
of your surroundings!
That peaceful expanse of green fields.
The complete lack of ANY
mobile communication.

When I am lucky enough
to actually stand before you, even
My voice automatically hushes
to a whisper.

I want to hear what YOU hear.

You were the first to track Sputnik,
to follow that miraculous man-made machine
as it hurtled through the Heavens.
You were there to capture Neil Armstrong’s words,
Indeed his very voice,
on that historic night.
Your brilliantly, blindingly, beautifully white dish
hears the echo of the Big Bang.

You do not Judge.
You simply Receive.

And it strikes me, despite the fact we were the ones
who brought you into Being,
Just how trifling we are in our humanness.
How inconsequential we must seem to you in comparison,
Because you?

You listen to Time Itself.

******************************************************** English→American

• Footie fans – soccer fans

• Tinnies – cans of lager

• Scouse – people from Liverpool, the Liverpudlian accent (The Beatles were Scouse)

• Man United – Manchester United, MAJOR soccer team

• Virgin Trains – one of the major railway companies in the UK