Station Life.

Based on Fenchurch Street Station.

The once-golden sheen
of hopeful charity collectors
shaking buckets
of dirty coppers,
invisible,
pulling on the strings
of hurried consciences.
The loneliness of
food concession workers,
one by one,
selling solo
Chat magazines,
pasties,
fruit Polos,
£2.95 disgraces of sandwiches.
The hostility one can feel
towards a so-called
tuna 'salad' sandwich
is remarkable,
eyes narrowing
at the three limp lettuce leaves
bruised and saddening.
The power play
of ticket barrier men,
who let through the mums
and buggies,
but tut and sigh
at those with a really big bag.
They wink at scraped-back city girls
in city heels
and cast frustrated eyes
over anyone over sixty.
Never has 'seek assistance'
been met with such dismay.
Stairs are carpeted
with Evening Standards,
Metros, Suns,
move up the steps
in swarms
don't look back,
don't fight the tide.
Crowds move
like those flocks of birds
that instinctively follow one another;
Fly towards Platform 3,
The train at this platform
Will call at Limehouse,
Benfleet,
and all stations to Shoeburyness.