The Issue with Tissue Poetry

I have sadly lost the aforementioned rocks and spines poem (bad working title anyway) in an unintentional napkin genocide. Never rashly clear out your hand bag, even if it mostly contains used tissues and tesco metro receipts.

So instead, this is a new one about trains, a work in progress, criticism appreciated.

Train Line

I’ve seen the back end of Britain

From metal lines

Where no one walks

Or sings, with the

Sliding metal wheels.

And I’ve been

To Preston

And Reading

And Slough

But I’ve not noticed

Them.

I remember

There were

Dense piles of bricks

Half a back porch

Forgotten hay bales

Growing grass

And old men

Waiting in garden chairs

To be offended

By the greasy metal.

For two days at a time

I live on

Border lines

No one can step over,

Legally.

But my place is reserved.

Once,

Sitting on a bench

In Peterborough?

I heard strange music

Emanating from the city.

I felt I might disappear,

Before being woken

By the inescapable roar

Of my necessary connection.

Land's End and Badgers and Spines

I have been in the foot of Britain for a few days, lots of villages surrounded by sea. If you drive down the A30 and don't stop you arrive at Land's End. It was the first time I had noticeably got to the end of a road. There is a Doctor Who exhibit at Land's End. It is a 4d experience apparently. There is also a West Country Shopping Village. I walked around all of it on the cliff path, a better way to see the end of the country.

In Cornwall they have cats with six toes.

Last night I watched Spotlight, the South- West news programme, the weatherman said he wouldn't even try to pronounce the name of the Icelandic volcano because it was too tricky.

My friends came to pick me up for a night time walk. There was no moon. On the way we chased a badger in a car for about 5 minutes. I don't think it minded, we all obviously had nothing important to do. It wasn't a very fast car chase, more of a crawl. He started running before we started chasing. Badgers run with a curved spine like upside down rocking chairs.

Brief stab at a poem about spines and rocks to follow...