SLEEPING COMPARTMENTS.
I don't like this, being carried sideways
through the night. I feel wrong and helpless – likea timber broadside in a fast stream.
Such a way of moving may suit
that odd snake the Sidewinderin Arizona: but not to me in Perthshire.
I feel at right angles to everything,
a crossgrain in existence. – It scrapesthe top of my head and my foot soles.
To forget outside is no help either –
then I become a blockagein the long gut of the train.
I try to think I'm an Alice in Wonderland
mountaineer bivouackedon a ledge 5 feet high.
It's no good. I go sidelong.
I rock sideways... I draw in my feetto let Aviemore pass.
Norman MacCaig.
May 1966.
7 comments:
Hey Alistair! This is a doozy, especially the final line. I've been somewhat absent these past few weeks, but now I am back. Shiny new blog design, too! Indigo
Indigo - Isn't it! Glad to have you back. I like the new look - like you've given it a haircut and a new suit!
Hmmm. I've always liked traveling in a sleeper car, as long as I didn't get a smelly oik in the other bunk. BR used to give you a cup of horlicks at night, and a cup of tea in the morning. it always felt really weird having a cupof tea, lying in bed in the middle of Euston Station.
It's something I've never tried is a sleeper train.I'd quite like to though.......
I can only imagine.
Don't mind going sideways.
Going backward while moving forward is a different story.
I like trains. Thought you should know.
dbs - slept on a few trains of course {in the seat} and woke up with that awful crick in the neck and getting the look from other passengers that says you've either been drooling or snoring. Ugh!
AC I share the backwards thing too.
And stuff like that I need to know........
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