Brian Purcell #3 Sydney to Urunga via XPT

                  

               Sydney to Urunga via XPT

In the seat behind me the kid’s

got ADHD or some acronym

aggravating his anorexic mom

pleading berating provoked

to long low guttural growls

the kid plays on

with an inquisitor’s

tortuous innocence

doing it for god’s

enveloping love

the city clings to the tracks until

bending to the will of the bush

it sloughs masonite timber and tar

On a golf course near Maitland

several kangaroos

stand around the green as if

waiting for someone to bring the clubs

An old indigenous woman whose

breathing’s a rhythmic and high whistle

hunches over a crossword

like a Sistine sibyl

as if her intentness could solve

the problem of the world

at the end of the carriage

high pitched drunken laughter

An old man hectors his wife

the train grunts

on and on

In thick bush on the right

a sudden gap the tracks

almost on sand blue sky water

a glimpse of the sea

so quickly gone as if

in our metal box

we weren’t meant

for such revelations

And darkness settles

behind us Sydney

a luminous octopus

far off and drifting

in the inky deep

On the point of sleep I hear the train

demonic, guttural, start and stop

lunatic high laughter a station cop

at Taree cuffs this dope who pushed

the emergency stop button cussing on

for his smokes his rum

his money back, tries to run

stumbles on the concrete

drum. Made us slow

no way back on

time to go

A crust of sleep settles over the lucky

as the train curves through the trees

I watch the moon

a white cat leaping from limb to limb

The ceiling’s segmented fluorescence

tracks like a Busby Berkeley set

Fred Astaire dances upside down

the moon the tip of his extended cane

Again and again

the child prattles

his mother gives up

on blubbing and rattles

to slip on her ipod and sing

Billie Jean is not my lover

she’s just a girl who says

that I am the one

but the kid is not my son

the kid is not

and the lights go out

the moon bobbing about

like a kid skylarking

                with a torch