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‘…I have seldom heard a train go by and not wished I was on it’
                                                                                             Paul Theroux

Across the darkened courtyards comes at night
the rumble of trains just passing through …

Travelling north between mountain ranges
I imagine smearing meat paste on dark bread
and knocking the caps off beer bottles on
nicked window frames like a local.
At the Polish border the guards push screwdrivers into the seats –
on to Katowice, Warsaw, Torun, Gdansk
and beyond lies the Baltic sea
which opens up suddenly like a thumb
on the ragged edge of a tin of sardines.

Or I could travel south where at Sturovo
the great cathedral looms over the Danube,
and down to Budapest, to Beograd,
to Thessaloniki where the station police won’t let you sleep,
down through parched and rocky mountains
sizzling in the summer heat,
spend a night in a goods wagon,
then on to Athens.

I shut my eyes,
knock back a shot of juniper snaps
to steel my degenerate, western nerves
as I climb aboard the Russian train,
which seals itself up like a submarine and rumbles east,
jars of sour pickles pop their lids,
sprats unwrap themselves from newspaper packages,
an American on crutches explains how to check for fake dollars,
two ladies from Minsk nibble on the corner of a slice
of processed cheese – who knew such things existed!
On to Kijev, to Moscow, to the Ural mountains
where on leaving Europe behind
the wolves of my own ignorance
race through forest alongside the train.
Ahead of us as the sun rises into our eyes
lies Vladistock and the Sea of Japan.

Finally travelling on from Bratislava and Westbahnhof, Vienna
I fall asleep to the lullabye sway of the Schlafwagen bunk
as the kind eye of the moon keeps watch over
train, towns, fields and farmhouses.
Brussels is waiting like a friend at the end of the journey.
Sleep well. Sweet dreams. Good night.

© Frances Bathgate, June 2010