Life, Light, and Humanity in a Single Train Ride
Matthew Jacobson has always been a writer who sees what others miss. Whether he’s walking the length of County Road or digging into the myth and music of the city, he writes with an instinctive feel for people — their rhythms, their stories, their quiet heroism. In 55 Minutes, his acutely observational poem, that same instinct is directed toward a moving stage: a Northern train carriage, packed with the chaos and comfort of everyday life.
The poem unfolds like a single continuous shot. The blur of carriage lights. Houses sliding past in muted colours. Telephone wires slicing the sky. Inside the train, the world is no less cinematic: petroleum-soaked workers shaking off their shifts, teenagers loudly debating festivals and fashion choices, families in animal masks, revellers nursing hangovers, elderly couples holding hands as if time is thinning around them. Jacobson has always had a gift for detail, but here he turns noticing into something almost musical — each vignette a brief note feeding into the wider score.
What gives 55 Minutes its emotional pull is not just what Jacobson sees, but how he listens. Snippets of conversation, gestures half-caught in reflection, the rise and fall of strangers’ moods — all of it becomes part of a wider tapestry. The train becomes a microcosm of Northern life: resilient, funny, unpredictable, occasionally bruised but always moving forward.
Jacobson’s reputation across Liverpool — from Pieces of Morrissey to his spoken-word performances and interviews with the city’s cultural figures — has been built on this ability to elevate the ordinary. He writes about real people without sentimentality, but with unmistakable warmth. 55 Minutes continues that tradition, offering a journey where nothing monumental happens, yet everything feels significant. It’s a poem about the small collisions that define us, the shared spaces where our lives briefly touch.
In Jacobson’s hands, a train ride becomes more than a commute. It becomes a portrait — alive, compassionate, and unmistakably Northern.
55 Minutes
55 minutes in the mystery chair
55 minutes of moving here to there
55 minutes of beaming carriage lights
55 minutes of gleaming Northern sights
The train zips by with passion, zest and dashing desire
We fly past houses and shoes hanging on a telephone wire
It’s a page by page flicker book filled with beauty of the North
It’s a plot of earth filled with grit and Northern warmth
55 minutes of a train ripping through the wallpaper of the night
55 minutes of this jut jawed juggernaut clinging to the rails
55 minutes of doubt and praying in case all else fails
Time stops as a drunken man slides down the walls
Part of me dies from the smell of petroleum overalls
Workers finished work but taking home industrial chemicals
As a teenager shouts down a phone talking all things festivals
55 minutes of steel shoes on the hard and worn carriage floor
55 minutes of the masses screaming in the corridor
55 minutes on a real and moving revellers battery farm
55 minutes of the bloke next to me leaning on my arm
A mother’s youngest in a gorilla mask screams “I am not sharing”
Her eldest in a tiger mask confuses all hissing for lack of caring
Their Mum and Dad scream out and pray for peace and easy existence
Dad kicks the chair in front of him lacking control and resistance
55 minutes of group talk about Becky’s skirt and its debatable fit
55 minutes of Becky debating but not really giving a debatable shit
55 minutes of groups talking love, loss, TV and death
55 minutes of talking so fast and running out of breath
The gentle elderly couple watch, smile, hug and hold hands
Loving the activity around them, it won’t scupper their plans
At a time in their life when they can say they’ve seen it all before
They have love for each other and don’t want much more
55 minutes of a man singing songs in a shirt only described as exotic
55 minutes of a group of day trippers handing out Gin and Tonic
55 minutes of make-up laid out on a table and big hair with rollers in
55 minutes of comparing fake ID to get them in
The stations flash by and it’s time to stand up and leave
I pick up my coat but the guy next to me is sitting on its sleeve
It’s a challenge and what a way to end the train reality show
But in a strange way, I am really sad to see this episode go
