Damascus: Narrow gauge
The Ottoman train
Swiss made (1905)
on its narrow mountain gauge
drifts away
from the main Hejaz line, smoking,
laying smoke wreaths for the city.
We twist through the suburbs,
stop for rubbish dumped
on the tracks, stop for busy roads,
then climb cursing, rattling, whistling, huffing,
an onomatopoeic fussing effort.
Freezing the passengers,
wind funnels and pokes through holes
in the wooden floor and broken windows.
Stones fly in the apricot orchards:
children pelt the intruder
as its doppling self
shifts away from its past.
Colin Crewdson lives in the Westcountry and works as an osteopath. He has travelled widely in the Middle East, and used to love Syria before it fell into the Inferno. He’s had poems published in The Journal and The Open Mouse.