Train station. Nights fallen, rains falling.
Little less than an inconvenience,
little more than a nuisance.
Train due: 9.23. On Time.
Clouds call in reinforcements.
Rain in a steady state,
it should try something new.
Train due: 9.23. On Time.
Platforms cleared some.
Would read, too tired.
Would write, too tired.
Train due: 9.23. On Time.
Moth idles around a light,
rains started to slant inside.
Not that something new.
Train due: 9.23. On Time.
“Well, if I do say,
that is the finest invisible
train I ever did see.”
Spent all night admiring that train.
Image found here:
http://www.urban75.org/railway/st-erth-railway-station-cornwall.html
Nice!
I can relate been at stations like this
love this. I have a complete obsession/fascination with everything about trains AND the time you have used in this happens to be my birthdate, 9-23. this one’s a real winner for me!
wonderful rhythmic repetitions of rain and train and 9:23…like a time keeping pulse…though life is rarely that predictable in my experience…sometimes it is nice to imagine it could be.
haha i love trains as well…even just being in the station would surely entrance me as well..got to ride one once…one of the old ones, not the new sleek ones…in pennsylvania…would love to do it again…
There’s nothing quite like waiting for seeing what a person is like. Waiting for arrivals and departures. Great poetry x
I like the precision of 9:23. Trains always seem to arrive — or not — at times like this.
Agh! So well described. We are there with you in the moment, which is both frustrating and very very wry. Well done! k.
Love the anticipation ..and the unexpected skilful ending.
Didn’t see that coming
. Masterful brevity.
. I have taht same problem with planes.
Love the repetition, it perfectly heightens the sense of anticipation. Yeah, all of us mass transit users have been there. Foul weather, desperately late – Murphy and his law is going to have you staring and staring and staring at the clock. Nicely done.
ha, love this… though not so much if I were there, waiting. well done!
OK, noting the moth…now that is someone bored!!
Details expand this scene – I spent a lot of time riding British trains. One of those invisible trains that never came allowed me one of the most interesting and memorable days of my life waiting with two older women from Shrewsbury while we waited at a stopping place (just a trestle really) at Church Stretton. Loved your explication of this event. It took me right there! (btw I love Cornwall)
The exhaustion of it, the lovely repetition! I spent the night in a Berlin light rail station once, long ago in student days, because the trains stopped for awhile after midnight. I the morning I and my companions took the first train to the next stop — and discovered we had been within walking distance of our hostel all night! Invisible trains, indeed!
i can imagine waiting there =)
I too can relate to this, though usually it’s only a matter of the display saying the train’s expected at 9:23 when it’s already 9:26.
However, my local station is last-but-one stop on a branch line. The train goes down to the terminus and then comes back. On several occasions it’s been ten minutes or more late going down and the display has said it’d be on time coming back, though that would have involved time travel to achieve as the time for it to come back had already passed.
I like the poem!
I was reminded of dadaism as I was reading this. I love it..also the bit of facetiousness with the rain. Very nice.
Still thinking about the Shikigami (see how I am…) and wondering if you/the narrator somehow wandered on to their platform….hmm…
Simply wonderful!