Sean O'Brien [UK]

 

The Lost Language of Trains

 
Those who can hear the lost language of trains,
who almost understand it, wake some nights
to flooded turntables and torn-up sidings
in birch-woods doomed to redevelopment.
 
But they believe in the smoke in a brasserie mirror
reflecting the paintings of Paul Delvaux,
in black trains stealing at dusk through abandoned stations
where the lately departed drink to the night, to the night.
 
Have they lingered too long, these believers,
an eye on the signals, an ear for the marshalling-yards
where trains are rehearsing vast chords of farewell?
 
Smoke fills the doorway and dissolves,
and silence follows where language has gone.
Have they listened too long? Does it matter?
 
 
 
Yours in Haste
 
What time do I call this? Time enough
to kill the suitors, hang the housemaids,
dig the faithful dog a hole (I didn’t want to wake you)
 
and make ready to depart.
          To each their own fidelity:
Mine is to ocean, yours to remember.
I am required at the far end of the world. So then
 
dear heart expect me when you see me
waiting in the fields of amaranth at last,
supposing nothing vital intervenes.
 
 
 
Winter King
 
I favoured the deepest part of our winter.
A good day was two hours of light
with the white sun rising to take its farewell.
Afterwards nothing but darkness, time,
and guilt to be apportioned. Thus it was
the flower of exsanguinated maidenhood
went to their graves in a garden so vast
it touched the Arctic Circle. It was cruel.
It was boring, as epics and eternities
are boring. But it worked. Believe me, it requires
the opposite of faith to die, almost, forever.
When I was done once more, I’d lie in state,                    ,
the wicked king of a forgotten country,
on that granite slab, my freezing sword to hand.
The waiting nearly killed me, but I’m here.
Remind me, though: what was the question?
 
 
 
Author’s Bionote:
 
*Sean O’Brien (London, 1952): British poet, critic, translator, and playwright. Sean O’Brien’s twelfth collection of poems, “The Bonfire Party”, was published by Picador in January 2026. His work has received various awards, including the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Forward Prize (three times) and the E.M. Forster Award, and his poems have been translated into several languages. His own translations include Dante’s “Inferno,” Aristophanes’ “The Birds”, “Eye of the Island: Selected Poems” of Corsino Fortes (with Daniel Hahn) and the “Collected Poems” of the Kazakh national poet Abai Kunanbayuli. He has written for English National Opera, The Royal National Theatre and for Live Theatre / RSC, as well as novels, short stories, criticism as well as radio and television. He is Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He lives in Newcastle upon Tyne, England.