Border Town Poem by John a'Beckett

Border town deep into night and the train named
after some distant mythical king remembered
for his famous dreams. Mieszko, Popiel-who now
we don't know in this snatch sleep of rust brakes
which cut off its pump and purpose and bring
us to a hesitant halt where destinations loose
their locative link for us, toss and tumble,
into this lost point of a subjunctive mood.

Hint of humanity in a bar and the hands spanned
in order to grip granite drinks, let voices cling
to the old arguments, those of possibly miners,
their waft of coal, coming off it all half aglow
tossing prepositions out of old causes;
in a prospect for pith, a groping for mind in
this star-light that lingers on black snow,
the quick disappearance of the verb to go.