David Chorlton

Stations

Camogli

The clock shows five after ten
in the shade
just above the telephone
someone left off the hook
when he wandered away
to ask
with half a language in his mouth
how late he should say
he would be, but nobody answers
him, nobody ever knows
how far across the tracks the shadows
will lie
when the time comes
to leave Camogli.

Torre de Gadanha

Evening comes first
to the long and empty platform
between northbound and southbound
while the pale plaster walls
of the building
hold the silence
of the sky inside them.

Aljustrel

Nothing has disturbed the weeds
that are nature’s answer
to the graffiti
on an unemployed wall
against which the sunlight
washes like a sigh.

Moldava

The tracks fork around a lone tree
that is a brushstroke on the mist
holding the land
in a stranglehold.

Kazanskaja

Part monastery, part kremlin,
the station, bright as frost,
sails through the moment
while passengers come and go
never sure
what they are escaping.

Oberwart

Snow between the sleepers,
sky of glass,
trees with empty hands
reaching for the sun
that drops beyond the curve
like a coin
into the slot
of a coffee dispenser
out of order again.

Boeckstein

Each journey is forced to pause
where the mountains leave no space
to continue
and all that remains
is to stoke the flame in the hearth
and wait for the signal
to shake off its coating
of fresh snow.

Klosterle

A name and a telephone are all
that mark the spot, here
beside the single track
that curls between the firs
where the birds fall silent
once a day,
exactly on schedule.

Longjum

Idyllic, the sky
is mixed from a rich palette
on the cusp of night,
darkening to the forest
through which the express
lets go of its long
yellow scream.

Vauvert

On long summer afternoons
a chorus of insects
illuminates the trees
standing guard. Someone
has duty today,
someone sits on a chair
reading the newspaper
struggling to stay awake,
but he is paid to wait.
He waits because
someone has to.
And the landscape tilts around him
like a rocking chair.

Walbourg
In a simple shelter
with three pink sides
a traveller sits
facing the emptiness
of time.

Venice

Four-thirty-six in the morning
and by artificial light
platform seven stands vacant
in the mysterious glow
where a sleepwalker finds his way
to the waiting room.

Zagreb

The Madonna bows her head
beneath the weight of a crown
in the freshly flowered chapel
with a light bulb hanging
in its halo
whose power is too weak
to illuminate the cracks
in the floor where passengers kneel.

Szokolya

Across the fallen leaves
that flood the tracks
a woman carries her travelling bag
along a path
her shoes remember
from a lifetime of arrivals.

Aubange

The dark bricks disappear
into the dusk
leaving the white window frames
engraved on the darkness
above a shower
of bleeding roses.

Frummelsburg

Light filters through
to the old flagstones
on the platform
where nobody is waiting
and nobody stands
with an open purse
at the straight edged machine
punching in a number
for a helping
of brand new money.

Godinne

A storm is cradled in the hills
surrounding the station
the sun has turned
into a trumpet call of pink.

Cologne

The diagonal sleet
slashes into the city
across the cold steel canopy
beyond which
the cathedral’s ghost
hovers between
the sky and the street.

Rade

Through winter rain, a diesel
groans along the track
where the lights are failing
on the information sign.
Nobody can tell
where the train is going.
The trembling of the earth
is all that matters here.

Breclav

The tiles in the underpass
have no energy to shine
for those who cross from one
platform to the next
while above them the trains
rumble slow thunder
and before them
the steps lead back
to the world.

Notes from a Visit
in March

I
From forty thousand feet
the Alpine light
casts white shadows
from ridges
alight with snow.

II
Within my first steps back
my old city slips
around my shoulders
like a wool coat. And walking on
into the grey streets
I keep expecting
the trap to close behind me.

III
Conflict is the way of conversation
in flat 21, where she
is stubborn and he
is deaf. She doesn't hear a word
spoken to her. He won't change
the way he speaks them.
A misplaced towel,
the sugar put away too soon;
no detail
is too small to bring
irritation to the voice
and a pause
of seconds in the sound
the pain makes as it drips
through her body.

IV
In her wheelchair on the street
a woman singing
sits with legs crossed
like rubber scissors
lying still. She holds
a wooden plate for change
and with a soft Cyrillic smile
says she is from
Bul-gar-i-a.

V
Memory
is the time bomb
ticking
in the courtyard
among the ashes in garbage bins
being sorted
according to taste.

VI
Between poplar rows
are landmarks: a railway signal,
hunting blind, roadside altar,
and the grain silo, each
of them standing erect
inside its trembling contour,
a signpost for the blind
sun feeling
its way to the fields.

VII
Rain falls from rain.
The light inside each drop
creates a spark
as it breaks apart.

VIII
Alcohol and rain,
the flavour of smoke
as it bites into skin,
tinged with cooking grease
and damp floorboards,
ever present is the smell
of forgetting.

IX
Departure time approaches
with a soundtrack of strings
and drops against the glass
tapping soft percussion
behind the words
which translate as good-bye.

I-17

The stars are thick
in desert country,
where the only earthbound lights
are those along the freeway:
rear view red and headlamp white
running constantly toward
a common destination. Trucks rumble
from their innards at a rest stop,
cars that rattle
follow ones that purr,
and the heat follows them all
into the city
which swallows traffic
the way concrete
swallows a raindrop.

David Chorlton was born in Austria, grew up in Manchester, England, and moved to Vienna in 1971. He stayed there for seven years before moving to Arizona, where he divides his time between painting and writing. A new book, A Normal Day Amazes Us, will appear soon from Kings Estate Press. email: David Chorlton

09-01/06-02/12-03/