Westbound

A picture's worth a thousand words
Screaming to be spoken
Flowers and chocolate say hello
My aching heart is broken

Painted word pictures
Of flowers framed in chocolate
Read on a train by men down on their luck
Clatter of rail ends enjoining on ties
Providing a background of rhythm for lies
Hearing a melody humming along
Painted word pictures becoming a song
Memories of good times and battered old trucks
Bottles in bags and an old deck of cards
Sardines and crackers and light from the yards
They joke with each other to know they're not dead
Five men all riding a roll away bed

Reviews

[Sel Whiteley]

Powerful stuff, as always, you really are able to capture the rhytm of the train and how that symbolises their departure from the yards and their journey towards something more miserable. The nostaligia is quite incredible. I agree with Gandre that are some beautiful images in this but perhaps most of all, 'the flowers framed in chocolate'. I found this line the most stunning though: 'Providing a background of rhythm for lies'. You employ the listing and ands quite incredibly here.

Memories of good times and battered old trucks
Bottles in bags and an old deck of cards
Sardines and crackers and light from the yards

I reminds me of a poem Rupert Brookes wrote remembering England. One of the few famous poems he wrote before the war. This masterful and quite, quite brilliant!

[Gandré]

what I liked on this reflection of a moment in your past was the motion, through the whole poem, and the flowers framed in chocolate - quite beautiful.