The Prevention of Reflection

A shrieking of levers

Halts the hissing leviathan

Searing sparks spit from steal sidings

As the haulage settles

To rest on its’ rear struts

The swarm, stooped and leaden-headed

Form the fleet

Lugging their load

Cogs burr,

Mumurs, humdrum

And seeped deep in saturnine routine

They perform perfunctorily

Souls fused solely in sullen,

Laconic litany

Guards here gird the ungainly horde

Stoicism is regarded with suspicion

They guild the surrendered mass

And the herd teem,

Steered into a thin, tin-can

Galvanised by haste

Pressurised by precedent

Buckled and braced

Eroded by habit

And a sharp signal ushers the exodus

To unheralded lands