Sunshine on Station Road (With Strings Attached)
Doom Machine
O bliss! The curtains billow like sails
On a schooner bound for Nowhere-in-Particular,
And Mr. Blue Sky, punctual as any postman,
Strides over the chimney pots
With the self-confidence of a man
Who invented morning personally.
He slaps light across my pillow
As if to say,
“Up you get, old chap—
Happiness won’t wait all day.”
So up I rise—eventually—
Kettle groaning, slippers muttering,
The house sighing like a mildly disappointed aunt.
Outside, Station Road stretches lazily
Past the bakery and the betting shop,
Each establishment radiating its own form of hope.
The baker hopes his buns don’t deflate;
The punter hopes his horse does the opposite.
A bus wheezes past—
Destination: Somewhere Less Exciting—
But its radio leaks a snippet
Of Livin’ Thing,
Which makes an elderly man at the stop
Tap his umbrella with unexpected rhythm.
For a moment he looks vaguely rebellious,
As if he might discard the umbrella entirely
And take up skateboarding.
Near the crossing a telephone box stands—
One of the last in the district—
And I swear I hear it hum
The ghost of Telephone Line.
How many confessions,
Break-ups, reconciliations,
And misdialled pizza orders
Echo still within that glassy shrine?
I peer in. The receiver hangs askew,
Like a tired debutante after a long ball.
Past the newsagent’s
(“TODAY’S WEATHER: OPTIMISTIC”),
I turn toward the park.
Here, ducks perform their daily committee meeting
On matters of bread distribution,
While a jogger—headphones blasting Hold On Tight—
Attempts heroically
To outrun both time and physics.
He gives me a thumbs-up
That seems to say:
“Should have stretched.”
By the bandstand,
I witness a small domestic tragedy:
A courting pair, all nerves and new affection.
He offers her a milkshake;
She declines;
He panics and buys two more
Just in case.
Their awkward ballet reminds me sweetly
Of Sweet Talkin’ Woman—
All yearning, clumsiness,
And lactose.
Further on,
A flock of teenagers loiters in formation,
Their portable speaker blaring Turn to Stone.
They appear determined
To look bored enough
To frighten excitement away.
Yet one of them—all fringe and sincerity—
Practises a shy dance-step
When the others are pretending not to look.
I silently applaud his courage.
At last, the afternoon wanes,
A polite guest preparing to leave.
Shops click shut,
The sky purples delicately,
And the lamplighter of the modern age—
An automated timer—
Sprinkles the street with steady glow.
Evening settles with the cosy assurance
Of a cat curling into your lap.
Home again,
I sit by the window
With a cup of something warm
And admit,
Despite the bills, the buses,
The small-town silliness of the day,
There’s music threaded through it all—
A quiet, insistent brightness.
A sort of everyday Electric Light
That refuses, bless it,
To go out.