POSTCARDS FROM THE TRAINS

Enter, cave person

For the first time in years I went on a trip that - aside from a meeting to see a cave near Trieste, and a little recording for use in future performances - was virtually nothing to do with work, a holiday embracing friends and family across 3 weeks in 3 countries - Italy, France and Switzerland. On the four train transit days a few poems slid into sight...

a brief piece of fabric from the golden half hour

                            15:51 18.12.18, EC 87, a stretch before Trento

in the pearling winter afternoon

the Dolomites fold warding bolts of raw silk cream

patterned with the fuzz of leafless mushroom brush

the bridge to oblivion

                            13:23 23.12.18, EuroCity 143, leaving from Genova

you'd been looking for it

suddenly

wishing you hadn't, see

the vanished highway                                           spanning the valley air

neighbouring passengers, afforded a passing moment 

to acknowledge the lives of others

as our train angles west, exchange a look, gesturing open handed, helplessly

hooked by the glancing memory

33cm³ yellow-silver-green

                            10:50 01.01.19, TER 86027, Gare de Beaulieu-sur-mer

it's quite some Mediterranean daisy

flowering mid-tracks, vigorous

beneath passing trains

il ponte di oblio, due

                            15:28 01.01.19, Intercity 1539, leaving from Genova 2                                   
you are looking for it

this time, the reversed valley vista receding towards the sea

back-lighting bronze hazing intimates

minding                      the gap

non retourner                                           
                                                                     11:53 08.01.19, IC 521, departing the French sector

sometimes

you just

know

it won't happen

again

extricating a small piece of conscious emotional armour

let those hard familiar chinking sadnesses escape, evaporate, expire