10:35 p.m.

Again the man ate too much for his own good. He could barely sit long enough in his car ride home without an involuntary bowel movement threatening to ruin the interior leather of his new convertible car. The same convertible he happened to clean earlier that day, and for the second time that week. Barley able to transition out of his car he wobbled his way to his front door and into his house away from the fascist eyes of his affluent neighbors. He plopped to the living room floor assuming the only position his body was capable of. As he lay spreadeagle on his back uncomfortable and slightly anxious he ripped his shirt off in fear of suffocation. The spinning fan above brought waves of nausea if he starred at it for too long. Rubbing his naked protruding belly seemed to be a brief fix for the brewing pain in his stomach, but then the pain turned for the worse. He felt the sidings of his stomach stretched and the food nearly about to overflow back out of his mouth. A small burp came from his abdomen and he could taste the food as it rose and steamed in the back of his throat. He questioned himself In agony, "Why?". Why would he continue to spoil the treat of dining out at his favorite restaurant in town just to come home in disgust and pain? Is it an inability to stop himself from ordering the biggest plates of food and forcing every single grain of it into his mouth? Or are the pictures that show the plates of food just too enticing for his self control? Is it that the price seems right, therefore it only seems logical to order the full plate and its copious amount of sides to choose from? Perhaps it is just because his finances allow him to and his lack of appreciation for what sparse living feels like, or even worse famine. With no real acknowledgment of the nonrefundable resources he so easily exhaust, not to mention the physical harm done to his body, he was doomed for failure. He winced as he rolled to his side. No burp could subdue the agony of each turn in his stomach. He feared at any second his dinner would decorate his luxurious new rug that he took so much pride in. So much pride it was not uncommon he would insist his guest to bend down and feel the plushness of it every time they stepped on it. Still the war raged in his abdomen. Focused on his breathing, he shut his eyes in hopes of a get away. Struggling to remain still he reassured himself to breath.

11:07 p.m.

Suddenly, like a light switch found in a dark room a life changing truth was revealed to him. One so beautifully powerful it was to change him for good. The awareness of this truth would put an end to his pain and suffering, his lies and imperfections. There was now an answer to the constant void in his stomach, his unquenched hunger, the glass half empty. No longer was he a prisoner of deception. There was an overwhelming fleeting of demons and a mountain of weight lifted. His vision was as clear and vivid as it could ever be. The bliss was not ignorance, not anymore...it was unfeigned truth. For the first time ever he could see life for what it really was. It felt like a lifetime of emotions in one moment. Simplicity surrounded him in every direction. He felt the joy of complete freedom. The weightlessness of eternal peace. He was to tell the world of this untapped truth brought to him. A new and better way to live. An actual sustainable lifestyle free of judgement.

Then without his consent, he abruptly stood up. Dazed and in a state of confusion, he glanced at the clock.

11:11 p.m.

He then looked down and saw what his life cleansing truth was. He had simply soiled himself while asleep, ruining his new living room rug.

The excitement built as I approached the station
you could smell the smoke from the engine.
Before you entered the stations enticing doors
you could see the shunter's in the sidings.
Black smoke and steam rising blending into one
the joy of the impending journey had begun.

Our memories are often all we have left
of the days we were young as age creeps on.
Bad thoughts fade as you only think of the good
steam trains dominated when I was a lad.
Boys then all wanted to be the driver of the train
in the early days of Elizabeth's reign.

Far less roads and motor vehicles to pollute
the countryside was ****** more rural.
An era when trains had more lines to travel
a pleasure for everybody to go roving.
A special treat to get people to the coast
an adventure not something to boast.

Looking at the chaos around us now
my young days were glorious.
Before the innocence was drained in the ether
simplicity the key to sanity.
A day train spotting was the weekend treat
then was very hard to beat.

The holiday to the Isle Of Wight by steam train
then across on the ferry I remember.
When my special mother was there very much alive
the past is the past now my memory.
Unique I learned I am not, millions feel the same
staring at a faded picture in an old frame.

Rekindles that long gone excitement.

The Foureyed Poet.

By the old garages near the railway sidings
slipping or sliding, through the tiding hiding
away, or near to the solemn aspects of ******
with ease, she can tease the eve of your heave-
**, or go, no, stay, she says, just today, or all
of your tomorrows shall be forgotten
Lonely was the name on a tag, lagged, left
forgotten at the bottom of the river, where
she lay, today, floating away-
But he stays, the way his spirit lays, let( )down
or all around this town, how it lingers;
the memory of love or lust on drunken Friday
nights by the fright of old Frank Alight, setting
alight the houses in furor, or moor the more
he bores by the moored shore of that amour
armoured, charmed, alarmed at the speech
patterns in the night sky, as she lay down
to die, or to cry, questioning why, Frank
could try and do this, Brutus, brutally
mutually assured destruction, social construction
or constriction, the friction of hands
around the throat, she never floats, just sinks
corpses stink, porous ink stained every lane
leading to the place where in disgrace, he beat
her face, and replaced the lace, in the place
leading to the lake

As a child
Down by the railway sidings
Hidden behind
We watch an ashen man  with a painted *****
The silver could feed us for a week
And she laughs as I cry
In the face of youths first love
The vibrating rail
Is an ode to the loveless love

I lie awake in the wooden room
I have constructed in the woods
dreaming of pretty things.

Knots like ochre eyes stare down from the oak wood panelling.
Outside, the wind brushes up against the fogged glass
laid into the side of my house,
a feeble proxy to the coyotes song
rippling through the ballooning darkness.

I built this home, all 275 square feet,
lugging tools and supplies through the barren acres.
I laid each brick into the fat black earth
preparing the foundation,
laying my life into it
nailing each board around me.

When spring rolled in the trilliums poked
through the earth to admire the commotion.
Later came their friends: the mountain-pride, 
buttercups and harlequin lupine.

In my dreams, the lupine could become a cloak of royal silk
wrapped around me,
the King.

Golden ore and stalks of silver
poking through the earth
where trilliums once grew.

That night I dreamt of pretty things
Shiny things still blotched my vision in those days.
I didn’t yet have a roof to stare at
late into the night, and the stars
burned through the treetops and into my
dreams.


Daylight was for building.
Laying the hatchet into wood
driving wood into frames,
with little metal nails from the hardware store
many acres away

Where men bought sidings and rope
for homes with Ikea furniture,
their wives wearing sapphire rings
and golden hoops
and all the pretty little things
I dreamt about out here,
in the forest.

Here, where sun cascades
through my windows in the early dawn.
So I close my eyes, and
decorate the silence with dreams
of pretty, pretty things.

She sings, mostly at night, pouring words from her coveted heart
tapestries rich with regret and carnal groans, bring heat and quench thirst
with tears.
She sings, do you hear her melody
as it reaches in to chill your soul?
I am obsessed with her fluid form
as she runs through our midst
wearing her path through life's granite sidings.
She is everything and nothing to all. She is both the glory of sunrise and the fear within darkness. A riddle within the enigma of an existence mourned. I celebrate the death of each lover that has serenaded without honour at her broken threshold, overjoyed by the lack of harmony as they flounder within her precious stare.

These exposed moors lie shrunk
and unslaked under searing skies
yet streams in damp bushy sidings
feed thriving ferns or tall bullrushes.

Gorse scorched to unpetaled shards
of stiff pretence once bore yellow gilt
yet life dies on hot clifftops and wings
feeding fledglings seek richer harbours.

This moorland looks on ocean's plenty
as rather precocious for incessant thirst
in midsummer dirth fathers disturbance
to parental warnings of dying seed-heads.        

Unheard their dumb cries for water
when plants' burnt insides become raw.

Trains arriving day and night,no rest for me but I sleep light along the sidings,hiding dreams among the cracks between the rusted railside tracks.
Tracking back to sit inside,a cup of coffee split open wide will hide the stains that hide beneath the figure of the man.
The 10.27 can and will spill more than me upon this sea we call our land,I raise my cup to British rail it never fails to give a clue when trains arrive on platform twenty two.
I am blue with cold,my eyes feel older than my face,no lace in my right shoe,I do the right thing,slink and sink into the subway,underground the sound of night and day where only rats and madmen lay,out of sight and out of mind to leave the streets above unmarked,unlined as if these were the better times that we were fed upon,
but we're not gone or gone or gone away and you can say it,say it,say we don't exist,it doesn't make it true or so,so go and take your first class,second,third or any other class you may have listened to and never heard and remember this,
Trains arrive here day and night,some will make the grade others might struggle and yet others will juggle with life and longing and I'm not wrong in thinking that some of them will end up slinking,sinking under the sound,under the underground,hoping there's no one around to see them fail.
Only I and British rail will ever see,who will swim and who will be a footnote on the footplate in our history,a city write,another night and one more train arrives.

What mysticism is this, that the bluebird fly by my window
  and wake me from peaceful slumber
That the apathy of a summers day can be repulsive to the few
  who fail to appreciate the eternal beauty of rest
That juggernaut engines rail by the sidings of the city
  and shake the Earth that mothers our day
Or that persistent devices buzz and ring and beep and cry
  on the tabletop by the window, as the bluebird fly by

We played
down by the canal cuttings
next to the sidings
which were no longer used,
but sometimes
I could close my eyes and
hear the wheels squealing
and taste the steam wailing
from the blackened stack pipes.

Mostly all gone now
not even a scar on the land
like it never existed,

the river still runs
and that was always on time,
in time
that will go too.

the sum of the total
is piffle to the complete
where the streets talks in flat tone
rolling along in grounded toil unnoticed
turning on it selves in mere continuous bore
carrying allied passengers caked in murky dirt ingrained
underneath and trodden only to be resurfaced and laid low again
forever a journey man that stays at the bottom in all weathers mainly just there

the raging networks
in pitiful groans of walked upon
interlocking and connecting craving attentions
only to serve as from here to there hardly appreciated
utility mats that bridges gaps and reaches far yet always low
it rises to go down and goes down only to meander to edifices
in stilled fury ruckus bumps gutters drains and sidings all inherent
it rebels insanely against any asphalt that lays on top smoothly shinning