Monday 13 January 2020

passed tense

  passed tense 

take the railroad track
foot after foot upon sleeper 
upon frosty sleeper
underfoot understand

  passed the staccato 
of the wagon works
manned by the likely lads
sworn in spit

  passed engine sheds
steamed in oil rags
and blue dungarees 
turntabled in childhood

  passed the signal box
boyed in signal dreams 
the siding’s points slewed
by the long-ironed levers

  passed the frogspawn 
spotted kids with their
jam jars and hopes for
grass snakes in trepidation
of bravado’s flaring eyes

  passed the joiners works
all sawdust and shavings
so clean upon the pine air
and the mortise and tenon 
of childhood and sweethearts 

  passed six pit junction
the biro-smudged train spotting books
the bottomless pit where
stones never arrived
at their expectation 

  past tense
passed tense those wings on heels
flying flying flying
and never landing on the future
that remains fixed in the past
  passed time
    itself passed time itself 
     

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