
The Railway Sleeper
I woke one morning from uneasy dreams,
to find that I had become a sleeper.
You were there too – lying down beside me,
on the ballast, blanket and blinking up
at sunlight which split stones down to subgrade
and baked us like bricks in a kiln.
We woke that morning to find to our shame,
we were no longer held in frame
by a pandrol or rail, but discarded
in a siding far from the platform edge.
In between shanty and shunters cabin,
far from footplate and loco man.
Sat amongst limestone held in sacks
of plastic weave, the axminster offcuts
beneath dustbin lid shade of knot, hogweed
We woke that morning to find, to our shame,
that our edges had waned, were channeled –
riven by the seasons for all to see,
to remark, lark upon our condition.
Joseph Long
If you have any thoughts about this poem, Joseph Long would be
pleased to hear them