On the train to Newcastle
I can hear music
A five-piece band
Guitar, sax, bass, drums
And a silky female vocal
I look around
Ah! There –
In the luggage racks -
Musicians
Giving the train
A syncopated swing
The conductor
Sways down the aisle
With the microphone
She sings
Money makes the world go round…
I am tempted to join in
But instead
I point out to him
That we are in
A dedicated quiet carriage
And suggest that he takes his band
To the buffet car
Where customers might enjoy a little cabaret
6 comments:
I'm finally getting my new book of grown-up poems together. I've whittled it down from around 120 to 40. This one's probably going in.
Nice choice. I like the fact that it doesnt even seem to rhyme in the conventional sense but the words flow somehow and it has a beginning a middle and end.
Is it based on a real incident?
Yes. I was travelling to Newcastle and I heard music and there were three musicians squeezed into the overhead luggage racks. Of course in the poem I pretend its a five-piece but that's called poetic licence and you're allowed to do that sort of thing if you're a poet. Of course there wasn't an actual drum kit either. I made the bit up about it being a dedicated quiet carriage, too. That was actually at the other end of the train.
Nice idea. Although those buskers on the train to Heathrow can be a bit of a pain when you are worried about missing your plane and you are suffering from pre-flight nerves, the last thing you want is a bad Bob Dylan impersonator shaking his hat in your face!
I couldn't agree more.
The buskers on the train
can be quite a pain
when you are thinking
of missing the plane
And all that luggage
piling up at Terminal Five
Will you arrive?
On time to find
Its all gone pear shaped
Or maybe BA will grind
All your valuables
Into a fine mush
Oh, do hush!
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