The history of the ghost train
is the hot hell of the foundry,
white metal seeding moulds.

The cold hammering of rivets
and rails work hardening
all the long days back to steam.

Most of all it is the people.
Unseen now they broke backs
for it and are now gone.


Tony Noon

What did you expect ? The bolts were here,
and nuts in this battered box. Books too
and some old tunes in obsolete formats.

The shoes that were supplied, were scuffed
and oversize but you had no idea, did you ?
You threw them away before you figured

that flesh did not come with the package.
You were left with a soulless, blinking thing
unable to lead you to higher ground.

The shoes were for you to try walking first.
Then to do it again and again, day after day
until your feet learned the shape of words.


Tony Noon

Somewhere in the middle
of this dog-eared spy story
I am back here between
beggars and buskers with
the world passing us by.

Above our heads the hopes
of all the ages shield us
splendidly and in your eye
a tear remembers hands
which shaped us both.


Tony Noon

Batman has a market stall.
His histories and alter-egos,
shuffled and set out in brown
boxes pressed out of pulp.

Priced up according to age
and condition, there is rarely
a day when he doesn’t reflect
upon his fortune. Not one day

when he does not wonder who he was.


Tony Noon

The taxis bring them home quietly,
chasing the last daylight towards
the ring road as if it had no business
hanging around here after ten o’clock.

They have caroused safely in the sun
all day, in theme park public houses
where the music is never too loud
and the drinks are always temperate.

In boarded and bewildered hostelries
as the moon rises there is still a clinking
of glass and after midnight, I am told,
discarnate laughter raises spirits till dawn.


Tony Noon

The black pick-up trundles by.
Every late evening the same
trek along these quiet roads
is hated by an unseen driver.

On the back a bottled reservoir
of milk ebbs and flows like ice
on some red planet faraway.
Tonight the telegraphed heat

of coming day means he trickles.
Then all along moonless lanes
he rattles home empty, longing
for rain and the lure of firesides.


Tony Noon

Baptised by early rain
they face up to light.
Upright as old pianos,
kettles boil all day long
while white nets gleam.

One day finer minds
might correlate them
with defunct chapels;
might seek out the lost
people and ask aloud

if the risen sun had
called them to glory.


Tony Noon

I could buy milk at any hour
but choose to wait until the sun
is at least hiding behind clouds.

In a world which wants it now,
a little sanctity for the small hours
does not seem to go astray.


Tony Noon