There was no freight today [9.30]
no huge canisters labelled with weight
tracking rail on wheels worn steel
hard silver, the rest workaday rust.
I like to watch this slow portage
of caged stuff worth exchange
precious, cache of drugs, arms, the ordinary.
Not today. That track is empty.
Commuters in winter black
we do our mini-swarm onto the main line.
I read Martin's poems, [9.45] that glint
of miniviews, the openings
slivers of thought, a poet's freight.
Carriage life roils around me
then stiffens into journey.
Daily life and lift roll up to
where I scoop coffee as a strong
morning gain I do not get
until an hour of words are cut, paste [11.15]
where I see weather and don't touch it
or smell it, outside is city brown at edges
crispy jitter blue and still - how we need rain.
Wheels fall off the photocopier
we wind and run, tape and score
along dotted lines, pushing dough
out the door, 'keeping the illusion alive'
with all its bleeps, [12.20] 'don't you just love it'.
Afternoon's sky curtain is better than
machine glow, it hits the window sweetly
even when inside's still all dash and chatter.
You can just hear birds singing [4.05]
in the traffic, and a jingle of paper clips.
'It's incredibly slow', the system
we have filled with all this freight.
There's the feel of a heavy wheel engaging
with the tricky slippage of the stuff
that escapes the chatter of labels
while brown pollution becomes the sunset
a gold horizon and all the daily weight
moves slowly away by journey [5.05].
Jill Jones, 5.05pm, Surry Hills (Sydney), 18 June 2003
|