Bus Poem #11 Poem by robert dickerson

Extremely unpleasant bus
awful bus, lurchy, late
crowded, unsettled, stop
and go, no
grace, belly in the face,
wretched cologne here, there
a childs' undiscouraged
prattle, man
staring at me, woman making up.
Too many khacki raincoats, fogs,
fat knoshers, too much
powdered-over pallor, too much
gum, too many rapids and reefs,
too many griefs and
poorly chosen neck-ties.

Late-
We are all, the whole world, this morning,
sadly and desperately
late, excepting, surely,
old Ms Byrne
my own appointed.
Her I do foresee waiting timely
in the lobby of my days,
sable tam
capping her decent head, en
chanted by the educational TV screen
over which notions flit
deaf as a stone, her
dormouse of a hearing aid at home
asleep in the drawer
it's costly battery spared,
punctual as a queen,
an avid reader of lips.