Homebound Train

by the river, visions out a window

I’m going back home on a train
back home again
the river runs beside me
silver, grey and blue 
it reflects the dirty skies 
and my eyes, as usual,
study the primitive islands 
across the glowing way 
old houses, dead still 
old places where I dreamed
one day I might get to stay 
sheets and clothes on a line 
blowing in the wind 
places that I never got to know 
marooned rowboats 
by sloping wharfs 
oyster farms in black lines 
black mazes 
on a long low tide.

I picture how the waters 
might have been 
from the kitchen 
of those imaginary homes 
the ragged floral curtains 
shifting and not moving
what is was like 
when the river fell 
and when the river rose.

I’m going back home on a train 
day-dreaming 
on the window’s changing views
reeling past the warehouses 
the minor factories 
the backyards of poor people’s worlds 
the businesses with family names
the tyre stacks, the parked utilities,
oil stains, white suburban palaces, 
mowers and motorcycle parts,
cartoon figures, used cars for sale,
inflatable smiles on balloons, 
a mechanical Santa Claus
waving to us in the middle of June,
hammers and nails and saws, 
garden plants and BBQs,
pet food barns,
wreckers in blue overalls 
a Holden on a spike
a mile of chrome and gnarl 
sprawled and crushed 
below this prize 
and inbetween it all 
bushland, vines, weeds
children, stones.

I’m going back home on a train 
the smell of a mandarin peel 
on my fingertips, 
a book of Lorca poems in my bag 
“Verde que te quiero verde”
“Green, I want you green”
it makes perfect sense to me
listening to Van Morrison songs 
his wild utterances 
his wounded ecstasy 
about ancient highways 
and paling fences
how he leant against them 
warm when he was a kid
calling to eternity 
and a love that loves to love 
inbetween hints of death
a female spirit coughing blood,
another poet stepping from the water 
La Belle Dame sans Merci
the rhyme that tells the story
sneaking up on window me,
and Morrison, getting on again,
to live in another golden time, 
divining light from darkness,
both of us inside this song 
looking down at something 
from the magic chance 
of a high, high hill
his incantation, my train, 
all these glimpses 
bleached and bright 
against a sky
that might bring on some rain.

I’m going home on a train 
my mother and father long dead 
the days and nights that passed 
since then 
in memorial blackness 
trying to sleep 
when I want to talk to them 
let them know how much I loved them 
how much I appreciated
all the sacrifices they made 
dad in the nights of glowing sulphur
the industrial lights on conveyor bridges
sparks falling like stars to earth
gobs of fiery yellow all over him 
walking through the metal lands 
past the silos and flaming stacks 
on the dog-watch into dawn 
for us kids, for the love that loves to love,
mum holding things together 
back at home for us six kids, 
piles of white-bread toast and Vegemite,
Vincent’s powders, cups of tea,
cleaning other peoples homes for money 
Tuesday nights cleaning the T.A.B.
letting us kids have a go 
on the polishing machine, 
driving us to school
teaching us about laughter 
and playing records in the lounge room
on a walnut stereo: Neil Diamond,
Elvis Presley, Tom Jones, T-Rex,
the green grass of home
Marc Bolan, oh yeah,
dancing when he was ahhhhh...

I’m going back on a train
past this river of a hundred journeys 
past the outer limits of Newcastle 
past my old school 
and it’s priestly assaults 
its fields of spitting and fighting, 
the loyalty of my boyhood gang 
defying it all,
us heading further out, following a trail 
in the long wild grasses of camouflage,
we smoke cigarettes, we cough 
we hear music 
from the stormwater drains 
where we ride our pushbikes 
the trickling of Styx Creek 
free and secret, tapped deep 
into our animal being,
chemical smears rainbowing
on slanted walls beside us
where one mad friend
stood and surfed the slimed concrete 
in perfect balance like a god 
from sky above to hard, hard ground.

I’m going back home 
to the childhood ghosts 
and the crack-ups 
to the ones that didn’t make it
and those still standing in my mind,
to the laneways and tattooed trees,
to my beautiful sisters and their decent lives of struggle 
to a cafe near the station 
where I can sit and watch the student street 
past the washing machine factory 
where my younger brother had his first job 
past the old family home we had to sell
its verandah where mum and dad 
liked to sit, waiting for us to return.

I’m going home on a train 
to see the waves on the beach 
the working harbour 
the coal ships gutted open
like great blue whales 
showing their iron rusted bones,
the hometown football team 
carrying our hopes 
to underdog victory 
long live the Knights 
running for the people 
my kids beside me
eating fish n chips 
cheering for the side.

Yeah, I’m on this train 
I’m going home 
Newcastle blood 
running right through me 
to all the beloved and the lost
beside me, beside me, 
all of you in this thing called ‘time’
surprise surprise surprise surprise
I’m going home to see you
on this familiar journey 
yeah I’m coming back again 
reincarnated, full of prayers,
singing songs, remembering 
just what I am 
and all I ever was 
again again again again 
on yet another homebound train.