Here, here...
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The gutter beside me, oiled-water grey
The rain's falling on my back today
The eyes of a rat are brighter than mine
See how they shine, oh, see how they shine...
Old man move on, nobody talks to me
Come on I'm hearing things, I can't see
He puts the boot in, I'm clutched and I'm gripped
Something gives way. I feel something ripped.
I feel my blood pop sizzling down the drain
I piston out but can feel no pain
I have carried the burden of many
Served both the street and the company
My mates died in action, my girl is gone,
Nothing explains why I'm going on.
A rib gives way now as I hug the post
The light in the rain dimmer than most
There's swearing. I must be blocking the street
The narrow way where they and I meet.
What do they feel as they wait for the bus
As I go limp without any fuss?
I sense from them all only despair
As my ghost leaks out into the air.
I, Leyland 63 178 Red
Failed in my duty and am now dead.
Remember me to your mom and your pop;
Remember the night you saw the bus stop.
Congratulations, Haunted. It was so poignant. You handled the subject with such heart and grace. Aunty chose well.
Abandoned
Paper crinkling
like so many
decaying leaves
as it is left
to the mercy
of the wind,
becoming enwrapped
around a waiting
pole.
Yesterdays
news discarded
by some wayward
traveler, a cold
bench, now sits
in still loneliness,
perhaps at moments
acting as a hard
bed.
Has the day
not yet begun,
or just coming
to its end?
But wait,
there is one
who arrives
in a time honored
tradition
in the spectacle
of canine devotion.
Patiently
waiting,
tail wagging
in anticipation,
when the very air
seems to vibrate,
a hot breath
oily in nature
excreted.
It stops,
doors open
and there files out
a line of strangers
each indifferent
to man's
best fined
who takes in
the passing scents
awaiting that
one familiar.
When it seems
the doors close
too soon,
pensively,
hoping
for a mistake,
A lone howl
disrupts the air
mournful
as it drives away
and no Master
to return home.
I'll throw my hat into the ring. Yeehaw!
To the bus stop, bareback
The old barbed-wire gate --
Then the pond and cattails,
Then the big bare hill and
over sagebrush, sagebrush.
To the bus stop, bareback
Fast freedom to backtrack
From her long mane I swung
Like Christmas tinsel and
She would run, run, run, run --
The halter not halting.
To the bus stop, bareback --
The old coal railroad track.
There's always a gate at
The end of a good ride.
And there's always a bus
On the way to somewhere.
To the bus stop, bareback --
My Wyoming circle back.
sorry it took me so long to get back here, Haunted congrats, yours was by far my favorite this round, I enjoyed all the pieces from it as well.
I'm thrilled to see the early entries, keep them coming!
Bien, Qim, Steph, I appreciate your comments and I can't wait to see what you guys come up with!!!
The Bus Stop
She’s walking the streets so far from home
She feels so depressed and now all alone
Wondering if she might have made a mistake
Hoping to survive one more night for heaven’s sake
But the bus stops here…
She turns to a stranger to give her a hand
He gives her the finger; she does not understand
In the town where she lived the people were more polite
Helping each other, making sure all is right
But the bus stops here…
Cold, hungry, and lonely and filled with remorse
She finds herself traveling from bad to much worse
Making a dollar the only way that she can
To eat and find a place she can lay her head
But the bus stops here…
Finally coming to her senses and swallowing her pride
She finds a dark, deserted phone booth and she ducks inside
Dials that familiar number, now mom’s on the line
“Sure you can come home, baby, everything will be fine
Remember, the bus still stops here.”
Pendragon
Friday, May 14, 2010
miss spelled scribblings
sitting at bus stop
across from
white haired
grey faced
derivative of black-and-white television McCarthyism, raised in Vietman 60's and achromatized in cold 70's
cigarette in her hands
streaming the thoughts of men
passing by
across her, next to me
is homeless Diogenes
still hungover after forty years
of abstemious nights
a tear drops
from the man sitting under the timetable
who has just dropped
his small transparent plastic box of tic-tacs
buses in Europe come from outerspace and like
but here in 'merica we sit in paper bags
In Germany, they build paper-bag bus stops by nursing homes
so that dementia-ridden patients can sit and gravitate to whatever destination they please
on the magic school bus of papier-mâché lunches and Zhuzhu cats.
Looking for a double decked bus
though world cup festivities have
wrecked us.
We're teetering down cobbled streets
to meet mysterious faces
and our goal
your place or mine?
Here they speak English
not American
but we mind the hens and
the hounds mind themselves.
What's a bus stop
among friends?
Finding no red buses
leaves us blue
a taxi ride
will have to do.
"Hey, look, it's Mini-Bus!" said a tall, pony-tailed girl.
I smiled shyly. "Hi, I'm Michaela."
She waved this away. "Yeah, I know, Ashley's little sis."
"Ashley? As in, The Bus?" another girl asked, eyes wide.
The tall girl grinned. "The same."
At once everyone crowded around me, giggling and talking girlishly.
Among the mass of shrill voices, one word rang out the most:
"Mini-Bus!"
"My name's Michaela," I said, almost pleadingly.
The tall girl rolled her eyes. "You were Michaela. Now you're Mini-Bus."
She slapped me playfully on the back.
I smiled nervously. "But I'd rather get my own nickname, not my sister's."
"Too late!" she replied, skipping away. "See you tomorrow, Mini-Bus!"
"Yeah, later, Mini-Bus!" another called.
"It's Michaela!" I cried.
They laughed and walked away.
So, um, I'm not sure if this exactly fits the theme... or if it even qualifies as a poem at all... but I was bored, so I wrote it. Disqualify me if you must :p
So, uh….. does this Greyhound really go all the way -
Salt Lake City to Sacramento?
Interstate 80
an endless mirage of dust and white concrete freeway
the husk of a rattlesnake on the sliproad
wrapped in vines baked dry like stems of summer lightning
A perpetual convoy of tubular oil tankers
threading along the hemline; green sumps of mildewed salt-lick
and the guy in the next seat zonked out
with his umbilical i-player zoned into some mariachi number
Seems like the horizon is going to sit there all day
waiting for the diesel fumes to blend into the general miasma
of desert heat and burnt rubber and roadkill
as another freightliner thunders past
with its refrigerated stowaways
At the intersection of Idaho Street and 5th in Elko
a pretty girl in cowboy boots and pink denim skirt
catches the eye of my reflection as she waits for the lights
and I raise my hand momentarily
but she’s focused on her mobile busy making other plans for tonight
Slam bang into that hillside
horns blaring as we seek out the cool refuge of tunnel
then an obligatory rest break
in some one-horse town minus the horse
and I’m looking for a place I can buy some ice-cold soda for less than a dollar
Battle Mountain barely registers
Winnemucca: welcome to the real Nevada
and a nod from that cow’s skull grazing for thoughts on the roadside
the echoes of some long forgotten rodeo ricocheting off its horns
Did that sign really say Reno?
Let me off at Reno.
Grab my rucksack, hit the sidewalk running
and I’m back in Salt Lake
So you getting on or not, kid?
Nah – think I’d better sit this one out.
Might make tomorrow the day I finally decide to run away from home.