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Joe Williams
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the poet
Joe Williams is a writer and performing poet from Leeds. His latest book is The Taking Part: a pamphlet of poems on the theme of sports and games. His other work includes the pamphlet This is Virus, a sequence of erasure poems made from Boris Johnson’s letter to the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the verse novella An Otley Run, shortlisted for Best Novella in the 2019 Saboteur Awards.
the poems
On Platform Zero
On platform zero, the next train departing
is the 08:26 to Oblivion,
calling at Emptiness, Nihilism
and Existential Dread.
This train has no carriages.
Please mind the gap between
illusion and reality.
If you require assistance,
stand on a chair and scream.
On platform zero, a man has been waiting
for the 10:44 to Scarborough
for 87 days.
To pass the time, he has grown a beard
and memorised the names of every
Secretary of State for Transport
since 1919.
The information screen says
On time.
On platform zero, the 12:15
to London King’s Cross
has been replaced by
the 16:22 to Inverness.
The Tannoy says they apologise
for any convenience.
Please wait for the doors to open
before boarding the train.
First-class passengers are advised
to go somewhere else.
On platform zero, you can view the plans
for Northern Powerhouse Rail
and the HS2 extension,
which will definitely be completed
by 2048, latest,
unless it is delayed by
planned engineering works
or llamas on the line
or societal collapse
or unprecedented coastal erosion.
On platform zero, they are building
platform minus one.
In the Lounge Bar
of the Comrades Club
Ashington, 1984
The bairns play under the tables,
waiting for Lisa to finish her sweep
of the room that tastes of tab smoke
and last year’s graft.
Lisa gets to Denny, head down,
checking the bingo in the Daily Star.
She lifts her bucket, delivers a practised
line: It’s for the miners.
Denny hoys in a pound coin,
bright from a nylon pocket.
You can ha’ this, pet. Ah divven’t like them.
Tha wus nowt wrang wi’ the nurts.
When Lisa’s done working the room
she takes the bairns outside, where
glass from a stoved-in nearside window
catches her palm, drawing blood.
Glastonbury, Parts 1 & 2
The first time was magical,
baked in psychedelic sun,
a third summer of love.
Sat outside the dance tent,
passing smuggled spliffs,
our skins scraped the parched earth
to sounds curated by Massive Attack.
On stage, someone broke the news:
John Major had resigned.
Raised the biggest cheer of the day.
The second time was Biblical,
rain-slapped, mud-soaked.
We didn’t see the papers that
compared it to the Somme.
Pre-mobile, we had no means
of contact over ravaged fields.
I never found out why
I ended up in the rescue van.
Might have been something in the whizz.
I waited for you for hours.
Publishing credits
On Platform Zero: The Poetry Supertram
(Chapel FM, Writing on Air Festival 2022)
In the Lounge Bar of the Comrades Club: Oluwale Now
(Peepal Tree Press)
Glastonbury, Parts 1 & 2: Green Fields: Sorted for poems
(Maytree Press)