Easter Thursday’s Train

by John Hassan

Easter Thursday’s Capital Connection

Capital Connection - Photo by ‘Raurimu_Spiral’ at flickr.com

Clitters across Paremata bridge.
Evening sun shafts through the carriage,
Bubblies clink over laughing tipsie
Friends heading north to Palmie.

The guy beside me Googles to Stuff,
Double clicks on Monday’s Moscow Metro mayhem,
Two women
Strapped with nail bombs kill 39.

Rebel leader Umarov claims revenge
For the massacre of wild garlic pickers
Stabbed and mocked,
Warning “war will come to your streets, ..
You will feel it with your own lives and skins.”
Putin vows.to “scrape them from the bottom of the sewers
And into the daylight”.

Reuters shows the roses
On Lubyank station platform.
Candles flicker and relatives linger sobbing,
Some cross themselves.

“Tickets please,” clickety click
“Thanks”, “Pleasure sir.”
The lady across from me
Zones out to the graffiti on the station fence,
As we pass through Pukerua Bay
And its simmering silver water.
Kapiti Island looks like a purple lizard, framed
By a setting Autumn glow.

I remember Checkpoint’s interview
Of a women who had survived.
She said it was the big framed man
Standing in the aisle
His body was her armour
Taking all the flack
Her accidental personal saviour
Soaked her with his blood
Good Friday we remember
The One who did for us the same.

Lubjanka train station where 26 were killed March 10 2010

2 April 2010