Halloween Ghost Train by Steve Hitchens


Locomotive graveyard.
A rusted diesel drum
and on the trees the leaves are rusting.


The air is oil and tar and grease.
The floor, sticky black.
The bones are polished copper,
gears and gauges, bits of engine,
cables and spanners and lamps.
See-thru men in overalls,
flat caps and bobble hats,
up ladders, hanging up
cobwebs and rubber bats.


Paint pots balanced on planks of wood,
saying: Fry’s Chocolate, Brooke Bond Tea.
Workshops for ghosts.