Barry Stations
A SoundPoem by Geraldus John


Barry station, hushed in silence,
Blind as bat windows scan the rails,
Around the curve a two-note prescience
Warns arrival of the clanking beast of Wales.
If raw metal grinds raw metal
Tribology rules Okay,
And when the flier takes Barry’s sharp corner
Forces centrifugal come into play.
Distrust that silence that follows raw violence
And the shock of its juddering might,
For with its crass and spread-eagled dithering,
The flier ever destroys the peace of the night.
A clatter of silence arrests the broad platform,
Soon to be broken by the patter of feet
Of the one and only, lonely traveller
Who has, once again, not a soul to meet.
Last train of the day and no ceremony greets
The lonely flier with the cold empty seats.
Its entry, in splendour, was largely ignored,
And there’s no one outside to clamber aboard.

With no real reason to stay at its unwelcome post,
The flier horns two-fingered signals to its ungracious host,
Then with creaks and groans and strangulated squeals,
With brakes partially released from impatient wheels,
It grinds from the platform with a series of bounds,
As the night air shivers to the clash of discordant sounds.

Barry station again in hushed silence,
As blind as bat windows survey the rails,
While far down the rail a two-noted prescience
Heralds the departure of the clanking beast of Wales.