Train Lovers

Maris O'Rourke, a New Zealander, has been writing poetry for four years. She has published in Takahç, Poetry New Zealand, Bravado, Shot Glass Journal (USA), International Literary Quarterly (UK) and Side Stream. She was the inaugural featured poet in the NZPS's (New Zealand Poetry Society) 'a fine line'. In 2010 she was runner-up in the Auckland NZSA (New Zealand Society of Authors) Sonnet competition and awarded an NZSA mentorship. In 2011 she was Second in the Robert Burns Poetry Competition; awarded Highly Commended in the Caselberg Trust International Poetry Prize; and First place in the South Island Writers Association (SIWA) National Competition



I blame Mr Foster.
Eager eight year olds
we ran to his classes anticipating
unknown journeys to come.


Unruly spirals of red hair.
Dashing matching moustache
from his World War II pilot days.
Slow smile starting from his smoky grey eyes.
He was easily diverted, especially in Maths,
with a question about trains.


He’d pull out the maps.
Trace tracks with his finger.
Sing the names.
Like music.
Like poetry.

We racketed up alongside the Nile
on slatted wooden seats
to the end of the line at Aswan.
Sailed slowly back on a red-sailed felucca
a huge Nubian at the helm
in a white galabiyya.


Entranced.
Enchanted.
We hung on every word
of all the things he’d done and seen.


We rocked along the wide-gauge Trans-Siberian railway
in Edwardian splendour
all the way to Vladivostock.
Pulling back red velvet curtains to see
Cossacks galloping across
the great steppes on wild horses.


Escapes conjured up nightly
on bombing raids to Berlin.
Like smoke.
Like dreams.