BOYHOOD ESCAPADE

Those days there were porters at the station--
the platforms gas-lit, dank waiting-rooms warmed
by hungry, coal-fed fires in cast-iron grates.

In the booking-hall we used to stamp our feet
to make a hollow booming echo from wood
and plaster walls and ceiling vaulted high.

Then down the sloping path onto the footbridge;
(the "monkey bridge" we called it), and waited for
a local train to leave, so we could stand

enveloped in white, clammy smoke, transformed
to genies coming out of bottles on
command, high-summoned to complete a task.

But one night we were mischief-bent, resolved
to let the station drown in wintry night.
We had a simple plan, and simple means:

long drinking-straws, with which to prod and poke
the fragile mantles of the swan-necked lamps--
and this we did. The mantles crumbled quick

to incandescent ruin, moth-like flakes
that cooled and dwindled into dust, their light
dispersed and quenched in hissing messiness.

Then night drank up the station, cloaked it close;
the platforms black as Erebus. We stood
and waited. Sure enough, we heard the click

of lifted latch coming from the Porters' Room--
emerging scuff of urgent feet, and then
coarse, angry bellows of the porters roused

like bees from tumbled hive. And thus began
the pleasure of the chase! We waited till
those running feet had reached the steps-- then off

we fled across the bridge and up the slope,
and booming through the booking-hall again,
ran laughing in delight; the hunt was up!

With curses at our backs we fled into
the lamplit street, and slackened pace, then paused
to view the mad pursuit. Just one had kept

it up; a porter younger than the rest,
who, when he saw us, stopped, did curse the more,
and shook a brawny fist. We laughed again,

and shouted taunts at him, and then we ran
for all our worth. He followed, slipped, and fell,
and sprawled there like a Guy Fawkes in black serge.

Our escapade had ended-- with further laughs
we shambled home in satisfaction, all
our plans fulfilled-- tomorrow we would gloat.


~ Stanley ~

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