Sleeping Compartment, by Norman MacCaig (poem)

from an t-Each-Iarainn [The Iron Horse] by Hamish Napier

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My parents pointed this one out to me. MacCaig needs no introduction, as one of Scotland’s great poets. He frequently travelled up and down between the rural Highlands and the cities to the south, and so must have taken a good few trains in his life. This poem must have been written around the time that the Caledonian Sleep trains started designing their carriages with the cabin beds no longer parallel to the tracks. Clearly Norman found this a bit disconcerting, as you’ll hear in this humorous wee ditty.

lyrics

Sleeping Compartment

by Norman MacCaig

I don't like this, being carried sideways 
through the night. I feel wrong and helpless - like 
a timber broadside in a fast stream.  

Such a way of moving my suit 
that odd snake the sidewinder 
in Arizona: but not me in Perthshire.  

I feel at right angles to everything, 
a crossgrain in existence. - It scrapes 
the top of my head and my footsoles.  

To forget outside is no help either - 
then I become a blockage 
in the long gut of the train.  

I try to think I'm an Alice in Wonderland 
mountaineer bivouacked 
on a ledge five feet high.  

It's no good. I go sidelong. 
I rock sideways - I draw in my feet 
To let Aviemore pass.

credits

from an t-Each-Iarainn [The Iron Horse], released December 14, 2023
Poem by Norman MacCaig
Recited by Hamish Napier

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Hamish Napier Grantown On Spey, UK

Hamish is a multi-instrumentalist and composer from the Scottish Highlands.

hamishnapier.com

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