While Sitting on the Train

While sitting on the train – I’m ‘practising

my scales’: writing blank verse lines devoid

of Class A Poetry, but shifting though the

creative gears, from neutral to first

(which sometimes yields an idea worth pursuing) –

when my attention is diverted by

a shouting woman getting on the train.

I don’t look up, continuing instead

to write my lines of bouncing, rhythmic patterns.

…I’m simply shifting gears: creak, grind, whirr, shift…

I write. Reading back, I see that I

have written shift and shifting in the same line.

The interruptions of the noisy woman

become too much; I can’t ignore them: she

has moved into the seat opposite me.

....The hypermoaning woman venting spleen…

I write. Her children – ah! her targets – join her.

…and spitting venom at her sons. No wonder…

my observations, written in real-time

…they wind her up, the only way that they…

It’s not exactly poetry, but still.

…could get attention. A sorry state.

And as they join her, there she sits, in huffish

silence, before resuming her tirade.

I’ve barely reached my second gear, but she’s

in fifth, and hurling insults loud and ugly.

From further up the carriage comes a new

distraction: piercing; insistent. I write.

…And now a screaming child. It’s hardly Whitsun

Weddings in here. Humanity, thy name is

tattooed in gothic letters across knuckles.

It’s true: one of the sons has this adornment.

And as I write, she barks a line of blank verse:

…I absolutely dare you, Josh! I dare you!

Young Josh now grasps this opportunity

to wind his mother up some more and jumps

on to the platform where the train has stopped.

He waits too long. The Josh-less train departs.

There’s silence, followed by some whispered words,

and minutes later, five young children and

their reckless mother exit at the next stop.

Poor sods, I think, and get on with my writing.