Silent rail

The bright yellow drawing
Of the outline of the sphere
Of the centre of London
Doesn’t represent the shade
Of the walls and of the rail
Of the circle line

The hand rails are painted to fit
The brightness of the map
And not the blackness of reality
Or the blankness of the faces
Under the metres of sound absorbing
Barrier from the wind and sun

Before the light has appeared
At the interval in the tunnel
The train creeks to a halt inside the darkness
With not a hint of anything ominous
But the weight of the silence of a full carriage
Not one talking to another; suiting the blackness

Like a brace of brittles bonds
No one wants to stop into the spotlight
And break the silence
Which suites the blackness,
But not all is in its place
For the voices should be rivalling the world above

The voices should be bringing
Invisible waves of light to bounce off
Every surface we can perceive
But this was silence on the circle line;
The earache of an illusion of deafness