Poem of the Month
The Emigration Trains
A pound-note was the best kind of passport
In those days, so I held my pound tightly
After my mother turned away. Idlers
Waved farewell from Ferrybank corners.
There was nothing heroic about my
Going, nothing like a political; destiny-
I'd just wasted a summer standing round
Until a job came upon the Underground.
I felt like a vagrant, destitute, until
At Waterford station I realised
My good luck: I owned a suitcase of card
While others carried mere bundles of cloth.
At Kilkenny every carriage was filled
To the door. One mother's last grip held fast
Despite the moving train, the rising glass.
For some it was the last touch of a child.
There was nothing pathetic about this;
Even the suffering Jews had kept a brave face.
We had our own state: a place to leave from-
Now the emigrant ship was like a big town:
That night it was Clonmel or Cappoquin,
With bars open, arguments outdoors
And politics racing through bleak corridors.
We were heading for England and the world
At war. Neutrality we couldn't afford.
I thought I would spend two years away
But in the end the two became twenty.
Within hours we'd reached the junction at Crewe
And sample powdered eggs from the menu,
As well as doodlebugs falling nearby;
All that fatal traffic of an alien sky.
I was so raw and Irish at the time
They said that shamrocks grew out of my ears.
I wasn't alone with my homesick mind:
When we sailed into Holyhead our tears
Made a pathetic sea. One labourer's voice
Rose out of the ship, like a skylark's,
Singing Kevin Barry, Kevin Barry.
His song became our night-cry at the dock.
Letters from London 
