The madness of King Commute

Beneath a canopy of light
a fluorescent archipelago
surrounded by a sea of night

The air fills with vapour, sulphur
and the rough and steady bark
of soot and cinder under pressure

Six hundred tons of driver
guard, shunter, craftsman
send a tremor through my feet
dinners set on kitchen tables
up and down Midland Road
and Railway Street

The simmering giant screeches
huffs and hisses
rings the changes
of relentless rotary motion
engineered into linear
journeys home to flats and granges

And from its flame
the shouts of men
harder than the anthracite
that covers them from head to boot
surly greetings flung
like hot Welsh cobs
returned in kind
by ghosts hidden in the night

I hear the vanished destinations
called with vowels too rich
to be enunciated by
the silicon of our times

And heavy blackened coaches
dimly lit with yellow warmth
saloons and corridors
of wood and well-sprung comfort
squeal to a pregnant halt

Behind the glass, studied views
of hats and mackintoshes
head-scarfed ladies
not a phone or headset to disturb
the reading of the evening news

All this shrouded in a veil
of rising steam and
leaking vacuum hissing
past the rivulets of sooty rain

And all too soon the call
and counter-call
the blowing of shrill whistles
slamming doors
electric bell clamouring the “Off”

Deafening wet response
spitting, ear-splitting
sliding steel and turning wheel
slipping on the rail
sparks blasting to the roof
as grimy faces regulate
the steam and shovel coal

Sepia people slide to
destinations long removed
from boards
and quickening rhythm
shakes the ground
abruptly ending in mid-beat

To leave me dreaming
in the night
as tears fall on anthracite
freshly spilled by railway ghosts
to lie around my feet