Weekly Photo Challenge: Peaceful

25137 and 25127 Await Their Fate

***

A pawl of smoke

A funereal shroud

For those who once

Worked hard and proud

No more passengers

or freight to haul

Just the muted silence

Of the graveyard

***

A peaceful rest then

For a few more weeks

Before the cutters torch

With its burning finality

Then nothing

But the greying photographs

And my ageing memories

A past put to bed

***

The End of Days For 08357

Poem by Martin Addison, 14/01/2012.

Commute Recall

The Last Bus Home

Sitting…

Eyes staring down the lights

Of Passing northbound cars

Left the bar

Too late again

Now I wait with bated

Beer breath

For the last bus home

 

A Scottish coach

A passing truck

Lots more cars

And then a cab

Should I

flag it down

No, I’ll wait

For the last bus home

 

Then it appears

Haring up the road

Driver anxious

To get his load

of revellers and workers

– Late from the office

Or so they told the wife

to their destination safely

On the last bus home

 

A muted squeal

As the bus pulls up

AEC rumble

Diesel in the night

All aboard – hold on tight

Conductor rings the bell

Ding ding

On the last bus home

 

Staring out the window

Any more fares?

The conductor

has caught us unawares

Search for coins

And pay the man

Take the ticket in our hand

On the last bus home

 

Eyelids close now

Whether we’re ready

Or not

The symphony of diesel

And the steady rock

Of the ride over the asphalt

Makes us drop off

On the last bus home

 

A tap on the shoulder

“It’s your stop”

The conductor has remembered

Where I need to get off

Gratefully I thank him

And stagger down the stairs

To wait on the platform

Of the Last bus home

 

The bus pulls up

I step onto the pavement

My breath catches

On the cold night air

As I step into the arctic

Or so it seems

After the warmth of the saloon

Of the last bus home

 

I watch as the Routemaster

rumbles on its way

Towards the depot

Not so far away

A short walk now

And then we’ll both

be in bed

Me and the last bus home

The Last Bus Home

Commute Recall

The Morning Tube

 

Queuing at the ticket office

While eternity passes by

Then running through the barriers

Under the ticket collector’s baleful eye,

The gathering on the platform

Waits with bated breath

For a train to carry them southwards

And down into the depths

 

Observers of indicators

Read the story in lights

Of the next train coming

Bank or Charing Cross…We will be…

If it doesn’t come… soon

For every second brings more passengers…

All of them trained to be

Observers of indicators – don’t you see?

 

A rumble announcing

the train is here

The driver looking forwards

with a vacant stare

doors slide open

revealing seats…all gone

we’re going to have to shove

if we want to get on

 

Pushing, squeezing

Mind the doors please

Stabbed in the knee with a brolly

hope he isn’t KGB

Commuters sharing briefcase bruises

Mementoes of the daily rush

As every week becomes five days

Of going to work in a crush

 

Standing…Pressed into a corner

Someone’s paper scraping an ear

Armpits wrinkling noses

With yesterday’s sweat

And last night’s beer

Heel to heel, toe to toe

The daily square dance

Off we go

 

Then suddenly…It’s our stop!

Open the doors, let us off

The escalators carry the

Dancing feet

Of breath-starved commuters

Desperate for the street

Where the air seems fresh

And the fumes are sweet

 

Commuters - Aldgate Station

Martin Addison, 08/07/2011
The reference to the KGB recalls the assasination of Georgi Markov with poison administered by an umbrella though it is believed to have been the work of the Bulgarian Secret Service.