Dover Hastings All Night Long

NIGHT CRUISING

in Dover at a pub
across the Railway Station
1x2 pints of beer/man
kill an hour

in an empty English train
making its way through the darkness
two friends sleeping
a third one wrestling with beerheavy eyes

lights rushing ahead in the night
hair struggling for freedom
wind draught beating two numb cheeks
secretly absorbing a jolly state of drunkenness

at some station
a bad automatic chocolate machine
with the knife a minor operation
and at once: "are they that easy to rob?"

two watch warps after midnight
end station sparkling up
sleepygrumpy porter
shuts the doors

on the sidewalk outside
sleeping bags rolled out
three friends and two other discarded guests
stars keeping them company

gulls and sea
morning concert under a radiating sky
and the path up to the hills is sweer...
it's Hastings nineteenseventysix


***

This InterRail poem was originally published in 1978 (in a poem book titled Ansiktet mot muren). Translated from Swedish by the writer. Three friends was one of my favourite Gentle Giant albums. And Hastings nineteenseventysix echoes something I learned at school. From 1975 to 1983 I spent some money on boats and trains: I was a teenage InterRail tripper.