Often I would see the express train
hurtling through our small station
on the Great Western Railway
dining cars with men and women laughing
and glasses raised in a toast—
a mime show in a capsule
in the midst of this sudden fury
this earth-shattering noise—
how I longed to be on that London train
rushing towards Bristol
through grassy embankments
into tunnels and darkness
and out again into the blinding light of day—
the train that never stopped—
how I longed to be a member of that elite
speeding Westward

Stuart Dodds