Water vapour

Water vapour

Trails behind me

A great train

Steaming through the night

A mysterious destination

An oriental surprise

The bones of the carriage

Brightly polished

Smooth as ivory

The engine, black with soot

The ghost of the machine

Screams

Swallowed into the belly

Of a behemoth.

I am swept out to sea

The lights of a ship

Snuffed out

In the swell

The deck moving

Beneath my feet.

Salt spray stings

Biting the exposed

Roots of my skin

Crabby crustaceans

Cling to the ends

Of hawsers

Poseidon rises.

I am cast adrift

On the back of a giant turtle

There is no end

To this grand illusion.

Fat black rats

Scuttle into the undergrowth

The blind eye

Of a hag moon

Stares down, myopically,

I walk the star path

It stretches out, eternal

And when I close my eyes

The order of things is rearranged.