Gueorgui Pinkhassov, Paris, 1996. Source: magnumphotos.com
On the Bus
Caught up short on the express bus and those drivers don’t stop for shit. I avoid the express because of my affliction but it was filthy out, brown cold rain, and here come the bus, and jostling, and I don’t notice, and it’s an express, and it won’t stop.
I’m good at first, plop down in a seat, bag under my feet, floor wet but seat warm.
Claude said it come from eating out of trashcans and such. They fixed us so we could not ever have kids and road us on a rail out of Utah.
I like to look into the houses, warm glows of lights, the bus passes.
I consider my options.
Bad to give us a bad name. And I do not call myself that. I’m a traveler. A time traveler. I travel all the time. Round and round the city I go.
But I can’t hold it any longer, and this an express bus, so here we go.
Need a boat to paddle out of here. Gives a whole new meaning to disembark.
.
Suggestions Enabled
Open to suggestions,
I put out my sign –
“Poems: penny each.”
“You can’t do that,”
the barista says the
proprietor of this café
said, serving my espresso,
fingernails bougainvillea.
.
Road work ahead, wanton,
careless within boundaries,
maps of books, letters,
history’s horizontal bridges
connecting vertical
cafes along boulevards,
sitting out under a tree
a dappled umbrella.
.
Now word wet wort pint
worth sitting sipping hour
pocket note doodles
watching the barista
come and go in and out
ignoring me she knows
too much already about
sorrow and my kindnesses.
.
Surplusage
Needless to say this
demurrer protests
this wants said
wearing the trousers
bottom rolled
and they were rolled
up in the park
in the alley
in the parking lot
behind the motel
walking the beach
sitting in a church pew
waiting in the ER
on the job
training
in line at the DMV
on the bus
in class
hopping trains
surfing.
.
Why won’t they just
leave alone all need
help some where
rake the sentiment
road rail sea
ink you bait
sleeping under plants.
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