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JOSIE'S POEMS

Travel and Transport Poems

By Josie Whitehead

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B Y   T U B E

By Josie Whitehead

By Tube

There’s a platform full of people
     Who are looking to the right
With the hope that they will shortly
     See a tube train come in sight.

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With their tightly rolled up brollies
    To ward off the London rain –
They hope they’ll not prod others
     In an overloaded train.

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Briefcases hold some documents –
    They’ve worked on these at home -
And the briefcase, a most faithful friend,
      Goes wheresoe’er they roam. 

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A bowler hat is dated -
    Has its time come to an end?
For the city-slicker youngsters 
   There's a newer fashion trend.

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There’s a grumbling, then a rumbling 
     That’s now becoming loud,
And a bustling and a hustling
      From this large, expectant crowd.

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And look!  Here come more passengers -
     They're clearly in a rush
And their plans involve the joining of this
     Relentless human crush.     

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From the tunnel comes the tube train
    Which slows gently to its rest
Whilst at its doors its passengers
     Are intimately pressed.

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Then out spill many occupants
    Whilst new ones bundle in.
They’re tightly packed like sardines
     All compressed within their tin.

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They’re face to face with strangers
    Whom they’ve never met before –
But here it seems quite tolerable,
    Not something to abhor.

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The doors glide to and off they go -
     A busy day ahead –
But for certain all these straphangers
    Will be back in time for bed.

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Copyright on all my poems
 

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* Straphanger:  a standing passenger in a bus or train.  "The strap-hangers were swaying unsteadily"

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'Tube train' - A British expression meaning the underground railway, eg:  'I travel by tube each day to work.'

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