There are no trains this afternoon.
Nothing is coming
From under the second-hand bathwater sky,
Through the zinc-tasting air,
Over the low hum of half-expectation
That hangs at knee-height where the tracks run away
Past frosty docks and groundsel
At the unadopted edges of allotments.
The clocks have shut down.
Deep in the roofing-felt shanties,
Sputtering quietly next to the kettles
The old gadgeesÍ transistors explain
That the racingÍs abandoned
And this is our chance ïto enjoy once again
The remarkable day in 1957 when EnglandÍ click -
No trains. But this end of the city
Is lending an ear - ïhousewives and the unemployedÍ,
The idle student eking out his blow,
The morticianÍs receptionist
Bent to her Angela Carter
(A slow day for death), and me doing this.
Never think nobody cares
For that thundery corridor
Painting its Forth into Scotland and back,
For the drizzly grind of the coal-train
Or even the Metro, that amateur transport,
Sparking and chattering every verse-end.
Where and for that matter who
Can we be without them and the world
They continually carry away,
To which, now itÍs silent, we find
We have spent our lives listening?