A welder’s flash from worn steel,
caught by an impatient eye
which squints to follow the arrowhead
and its level of mercury track.
The empty linear landscape,
its regular stillness and a haze
from boiler filled noon’s that
marry nature with graffiti red walls.

‘Sir Matt Busby’ arriving to ignorance
following its routine of day.
Leaving with a rhythmic clack
and silent laughing children
walking nowhere the opposite way
against a motion and hissing brake.

Starlings standing overhead on
their trapeze - a furrowed brow
showing silently – ‘how or why?’
watching the birds as they sing.

Chilled colourful platforms, a stage
to shout, to run, to fall, to scream
and later a wreath of condolence
will pale with the memories.

As anonymous starlings fly away
carried on the screams of youth
and later a Mother’s tears
before finally, her rage.

I'm there
on that metrolink platform
The train named Busby, then the silence

I love the urban scenes this poem captures a moments sometimes eerie silence and the impending next steps of a journey.

I would like to see a continuation, perhaps our protagonist zooms in on something in detail next?

(hey Darren do you like deserted railway stations too?)

Yeah Pete. I spent many a day and night standing at various station platforms along the Metrolink system. I spent over two years working at the Metrolink Police Unit and in that time there were several fatalities - suicides, accidents and the like.The poem is just about one such fatality.
What's rather bizarre is that I do 'enjoy' train stations. There is an intense and deep sense of history at Victoria train station in Manchester. With its almost invisible sign that recognises the Men and Women who passed through the station on their way to various parts of the world during the Second World War. It's not really the stations that I respect, it's the sense of history. Victoria station looks and feels old in most parts. Buildings like that do nothing but stimulate an imagination, and the senses.

On the theme of Train Stations...

NO LOITERING - NO LITTERING

Under shelter for customers
anonymous routine passengers
fill his day with nothing but
a silence and the occasional glance.

Sitting inside the clothes that are his home,
every day and night soiled into the tweed
lapel and fraying twine around acrylic pants
that shine with age and neglect.

Above his shoulder on a flaking wall
increments of time are displayed
for all the town to see and cast a
glance at an empty wrist.

Row after row of carriages
reflecting inside the city eyes
that have never seen the empty train
or the spectre of lost opportunities.

Leaving to continue silent journeys
and their destinations imagined
inside a mind that will apportion a blame
in his own time.