Train journey in the Midlands

Written a while back, and originally used in a slightly odd song I penned (using Jeskola Buzz for those who are into such things) called 'Some Cows Still Live'.

Train journey in the Midlands

A lakeful of swans by a burned-out car,
A pylon grey against a grey bruised sky
Echoes a village church spire
And a lightning-split oak-tree’s trunk.

Between rounds of a card-game with his friends, if friends they are
A sullen youth eyes me sleepily,
Head rested crook-necked on the shoulder of a languid blonde
As, across the aisle, a loud-mouthed slattern sucks her fingers
And their bile-green varnished talons.

Hazy tower-block mirages peer foggily through trees from the horizon,
A crow lands in the corner of a field.
Luggage-toting strangers cluster in the aisle
As if the train will move more quickly
Because, according to a mobile-sucking suit behind me,
It’s monumentally late.

A monument in less than an hour
Seems a miraculous use of time to me.