National Poetry Month 2015: Hugh Thomas,

Train travel and death

The train forgets its journeys
starting from the middle.
Encased in archaic armour
its music of the grave
makes me cough.
The train does not tell lies.
It travels through my body,
through nerve and muscle I've forgotten.
It turns me upside down
and hangs me from the landscape.
Already I hear of voyages.
Neither male nor female,
it was put on like an illness.
Who goes there? -- Fugitives and friends.


                  (a translation of the poem
                   by Claude Péloquin
                   posted in the Ottawa train station

Hugh Thomas is a poet and translator living in Fredericton, where he teaches mathematics at the University of New Brunswick.  His most recent chapbook, Albanian Suite, was published by above/ground press in 2014.  His previous chapbook, Opening the Dictionary, also published by above/ground press, was shortlisted for the 2012 bpNichol chapbook award.