All of these poems, though not all directly about travelling, have been enspired by the time that I spend in transit. They have not been altered in transcription in order to preserve the feelings and thoughts that created them.

WET JOURNEY

Everything's gone clingy in the six o'clock sweat
Shut windows dribble down a haze
Big Train eats his fill of tired, hungry, anonymous people
Purring, everything inside's far too close for me

White dark train shot me here
3rd world over crowding that we put up with
No-one else would. Just us
In our pin-stripe prison bars
Drinking in our daily dirt and diesel

Linda moaned about Justin's reading
I talked football to a girl who doesn't understand
Me. Thinking about Frank by Charing Cross
Can I do what he did? Or has it been done?

She got off at Oxford Circus by then
My shirt was soggy and my back was soaked
Everyone's in the same boat. The same submarine
Baker Street blows hustle and bustle at me
So it goes quiet after and Blond girl #1's I-pod
Can be heard like a post post-modernistic
Droning on the may-as-well-be-night below
Click clacks on

Watch the orange screen
Determining my fate and finances
Cute girls drift past London's little
Peruvian mascot. Tells so much

Rumbling along now with a breeze
Fluttering in agonistic, agnostic lethargy
Artistic in a way, writing this.
Ealing Broadway makes an exciting appearance
Delay. Wanker in a bad haircut steals a
Pregnant woman's seat. I'm boxed in. I can't
Move. I'm trapped (he might be reading this!)
But I still feel guilty. I'll pretend to sleep.
Gutless in orange light and blue jeans.

**************************************************************
DRY JOURNEY

The engine bubbles on the track
Purring as it shelters. Still
And away from overcast skies
March is such a nothing month
I bet it gets picked on by
February The Freak and The April Fool

Scanning through the mucky windows
The platform looking for familiar faces
And pretty girls dripping in the still air

Big Train huffs and puffs and pulls
Away from rural greenery and Idyllic scenery
Hardly a need for sunglasses (maybe)
So is that Lady down the carriage spying on me?

Blurring beauty into abstract so-sos
Broken sheds and long forgotten copses
Sleep in childish imagination filled
With trolls and elves and wild beasts
I think Harvey's day is dying

"Trundle" says Big Train and
Moves on once again from little Shiplake
Forcing my words to scuff and jolts
Perhaps it's trying to write its own story
Or maybe I've just found another critic.
Benjamin said it would be hard for little me
But getting hastled by popular transport
Is something else

Stop start again from Wargrave
Sad memories given a happy town of hope
Classic Constable becomes Classic Rousseau
Grand oak curtsies as he watches Twyford Station

Ending soon. The climax lost in polite
Waiting. We get up. I'll have to wait.
Maybe not them. Typical.

********************************************************************
FISH MACHINE

From my balcony with coffee beneath my nose
I can see the fish machine revolve. Two circles
One inside goes left, outside right. Flowing
Smoothly with cold dead beasts surfing coloured
Bowls provide the hungry with themselves.
I've been here at Nine before when it really
Smells and burly chefs sculpt flanks. With baited breath
I wonder what the fish would think of Sushi

"They do what to me?!" The soul fish asks appalled
"To be devoured is bad enough, but raw!" "How is that
Worse than being cooked?" I exclaim "Well at least
The frying pan has a certain ceremony. And the oven
Is as grand a tomb as one can find in my line of work!
Bt to be butchered with not so much as a fry or steam
Or kiss my fin!" "It's very popular" says I "Good for
Us humans too" "Oh good for YOU is it? Well as long as
You're all well and good, I shouldn't care what
Happens to me..."
Humanity says "No you shouldn't"

Perhaps the fish prefers the ice to fire
I don't think he really cares but you
Never know. I hate fish.

***************************************************************
THE POINT (8)

Does this poem have a point?
That it's not prose may disappoint
The man who thought I'd tell the truth
Can stand to know I applied my youth
And vigour, vim to assess this task
To answer him and not just ask
But the problem stands that stood still then
I'm sorry, what was the question again?

************************************************************
EYELID (8)

The greatest tool that God bestowed
Was the eyelid I will have you know
It hides our gaze and brings on sleep
And shrouds the shame as we begin to weep
It protects from grit and dirt and wind
And holds our attention when up they're pinned
They do all this and never get applause
Well thank-you eyelid, here's to you and yours

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IMAGINATION IN A THOUSAND SHEDS

I pass a thousand sheds too big for hoes and shovels
And my mind wonders what happens in each

A queue of hostile ostriches wait patiently with the
Brave pigeons who jump in Korma sauce for supermarket curries
And are labelled as being chicken in shed #1

Shed #2 is full of cowboys and shed #3 is full of
Indians. They all want to settle a score so they fire
Water pistols from the windows at each other

Shed #4 makes Battenberg badly

Sheds #5 to #12 house all the toothpicks ever used
In the United Kingdom

Shed #13 is empty because people think it's unlucky

Elvis and Salman Rushdie hide in shed #14 while Gary
Larson sketches them from a time hole for
Yesterday's Farside cartoon

We don't talk about shed #15

Shed #16 is slowly falling over to get away from shed #15

Shed #17 is manipulating gravity to hold up shed #16
Because it really doesn't want to be next to #15. #17
Also houses some shoes (which house some mice) and it
Wonders why shed #14 doesn't care about shed #15

Shed #18 studies maths at the LSE

Shed #19 is full of string which insomniac dung beatles
make into balls for your consumption

Sheds #20, #21 and #23 all wonder why there is no
Shed #22

Shed #22 is hiding in Jamaica

Shed #24 is full of cheese

And shed #25 is full of ham and hates shed #24 for
What it has become

----More sheds to follow----

******************************************************************
RESTING STONE (8)

Skin splits, smoke defiles my throat
The concrete and sand of this world denote
A beast too big for shape and size
Who sees me with seven million eyes
That doze in smog on pillows of deep down earth
In mud that once was no one's worth
Marble and glass lift into the sky
This resting stone is still alive

***********************************************
MOULD (Haiku series)

Creation it means
But it also is decay
Irony you see

To formulate men
To sculpt the dwelling species
Life from those warm hands

To rot in gray green
Left to wither and demise
Rotting to the core

Mould is life for us
When finished we may begin
To finish again

******************************************************************************
MORE SHEDS

Shed #26 is really unimaginative so it just houses
Lots of little sheds and refers to itself (laughing)
As the "Mother Shed".

Shed #27 is holding all the pens and pencils I've ever lost.
It's also in the process of applying for a government grant so
That it can get its hands on all my lost socks.

Shed #28 and shed #29 are full of signed celebrity
8"x10" glossies

Shed #30 listens to Iron Maiden in the bath

Shed #31 houses two small eastern European republics

Shed #32 is full of sand

They build Arnie's Hummers in shed #33 which coughs
When no-one else is looking

Shed #35 ate shed #34 and is making eyes (or windows) at
Shed #36 which houses BBQ sauce

Cassette tapes wait in shed #37 for the day when they
Are pop again

From shed #38 to shed #42 there is a suspicious haze
And some funny laughter.

They filmed Das Boot in shed #43. It is now home to
An osprey and a lot of t-shirts

Shed #44 makes bad coffee for consumption by coffee
Shop interlectuals who think everything is bad is so cool, man.

Shed #45 prefers to be called "An external source of
Interior storage space" but refused to be defined by
Conventional means, and fair enough by the way

Shed #46 is unlit yet full of light bulbs

Shed #47 is empty

Shed #48 houses car batteries and battery hens

Shed #49 looks to the future but never forgets
Where he came from

Shed #50 knows where shed #49 came from so she
Refuses to talk to him which might be a bit wrong
If you know what I mean.

*******************************************************************
BEAMING

A glowing web falls from the blue above
Drenching me in arid heat and holding
Me. Licked dry by Apollo's mares as they
Pace across what was not named in Achaea.
Moments in obscurity as big fluff swims
Across the azure desert. He's a
Plane now but he was a turtle not too long
Ago. Like an arrow though the ball breaks
Out then hacks away the damp obstruction.
The street lights look to their feet in shame.
They had the nerve to take on Diana but
Now the Fire's back and burning. He scolds
Them for the heirs they took and then he
Looks to me and smiles through red teeth.
As a hawk bathes high above and I turn away.

**********************************************************
INSANITY (8)

Insanity is astoundingly oppressive
A calamity when I'm aggressive
Now calm in arms of air and light
I don't know what I'll be tonight
Why fight the whims or ego, eh?
When with wind thoughts blow away
Feeling lost and mind gone too
You'll never know just what I'll do

************************************************************
DAY WALK

A man in a dress gave me some paper
It said that it could ease my soul
As if a free bit of paper could do that
I mingled with the leaves down the hill
Friendly, touchy-feely
Stealing my attention from the clouds
Wafting through the gulf stream
Stolen from Gaia
Just because it can I guess
I just heard that Coca-Cola is LTD!
That'll please Pepsi?
Nothing to do, I seize the day to
Sit and drink
Watch other people living
I did too much 3 years ago so now
I have to sip moderately
My feet are choking
Her lips look good but the hair's a mess
I guess the wind got bored with the leaves
Now her hair's good
That fake french bakery across
The street isn't healthy
Cold sun's bad for business
I wish I had a purpose

*************************************************
FURTHER SHEDS

Shed #51 feels like it's over the hill

Shed #52 keeps saying "well how do you think I feel!?" to shed
#51

There never was a shed #53. No-one knows why, there just
didn't seem like there would ever be a need for shed #53

Shed #54 is owned by a company who ensure that there is
always blue fluff in your belly button. Hence, it is full
of fluff (not blue fluff though as the colour gets applied elsewhere)

Shed #55 is retired

Shed #56 and shed #57 store luminous boiler suits

The official secrets act prevents us from talking about
shed #58

Shed #59 is full of clip frames and snooker cues

Shed #60 is a wildlife sanctuary which means that shed #61
is always complaining about the smell

Shed #62 applied to deed poll to have its name changed to
Obi Wan Kenobi #63

Shed #63 has to keep going round to get its mail from
Obi Wan Kenobi #63 and therefore she's always really
pissed off

Shed #64 is just so thrilled to be in a poem

Shed #65 is one of the world's largest sources of canned
laughter

There are chain pub menus in shed #66

Sheds #67 and #68 are unwanted and left to crumble in
the sun and the snow

Shed #69 is so embarrassed about having 69 in its name because
of... you know...

Shed #70 is full of people who I don't want to talk to anymore

There is a recycling centre in shed #71 which deals
specifically with those beer mats that people fold up
To stop pub tables from wobbling

Shed #72 is embarrassed about writing poetry so it blushes

Shed #73 thinks that he might be obsessive compulsive

Shed #74 used to be a "page three" model

There are 4 plastic flamingoes, a ceramic penguin and
half of a glass kingfisher in sed #75. She has to be
Really quiet and still