The Quiet Man In Black Poem by Buddy Bee Anthony

I have a recurring dream
how I'm being driven on a bus, up a steep mountain road.
It's a precarious route having a soft dirt shoulder,
The bus is always driven by a silent black man.
Each time I take the ride up
the visibility gets worse.
Next time when I take his bus,
he is navigating in total fog.
It looks like someone has soaped our windows
Looking out of the glass, I can see nothing
beyond a viscous film.
I gather up any self control I have left
to restrain myself from screaming
'we're all going to die.'
Everyone else on the bus is asleep, reading or
or deeply engrossed in some other activity
occupying their attentions
oblivious to our imminent peril.
I start praying to my estranged God.
Cold rivulets of sweat
begin streaming down
my forehead and back.
How can this bus driver navigate blind
the road ahead of us?
I pray I'll awaken soon from this bad dream
but it seems all too real.
It's clear our lives are hanging by only
the thin thread
of our bus drivers bird sense
keeping our transport bus from falling
for a half mile over the high cliff
only to be crushed on the rocks far below
then burnt to a crisp
Yet, miraculously, we
arrive at the summit of the mountain,
safe and intact.

I gaze out at a plush tricked out
campus with the appearance of a
fortune 500 flagship headquarters.
Seemingly created by a
half baked, eccentric billionaire
Never having had their fill
of Disneyland as a child
Or ever enjoying the simple pleasures
of trolling on a rented
fishing boat, for pan fish
with their father or siblings.
Everyone's clothing doesnt match
My eyes greet
fashion disaster after fashion disaster.
from some mercifully lost era.
clothing and accessories
you'd see advertised in some
dated sports magazine.
The young men are well groomed,
and close shaven.
Many are animated,
but looking as if
they would kill to be anywhere else.
Those making small talk
with the opposite sex,
seem intermittently to be
gaining their attention.
Handsome, sharp tongued,
blond youth
practiced in
just the right amount
of bad body language, .
Caught in rehearsed poses.
as if schooled by
the same drama teacher
in method acting.
But,
their method is like
a record that keeps skipping
and their teacher has gotten
all the wrong kinds of attention
or got in serious legal trouble
from attention they've been given.
The women walk the runway
models posing as actresses
fighting for a small part
of which they haven't been
given their lines yet.
There's forced laughter
coming from another group of young fillies
as they huddle, like penguins, in protective groups.
They somehow maintain an odd blend
of danger readiness and nonchalant, disregard.
There are a few people who everyone gathers around.
But, nobody is really connecting.
It looks like a poseurs convention.
The theme here is to resonate the
look of effortless ambition.
In the hope someone might be curious how many
plates they might be able to spin if they
had the concentration to do so.
The place crawls with
designer, showroom, people,
who's parents appeared to have raised them
as investments to be exchanged, bartered
sold at auction to car collectors experiencing
a midlife crisis, bidding on
vintage Corvettes, Mustangs, Firebirds, along with
and a few Edsels and Citroens

Vitally important plans to the advancement
of civilization are materializing here.
Although It's unclear
what those plans might be
and when the deadline
for completion might be.

So, why am I here?
I pay no tuition to attend.
I have not job, nor a post to man.
I haven't a teaching certificate.
I don't recognize anyone
though, everyone seems
oddly familiar, like being
the same species
of primate being flown in
from the wild and having to acclimate to
a big city zoo.
Am I here to give a lecture.
If so, on what topic?
To fix a car's transmission?
Give haircuts? Swimming lessons?
I am hoping to find out before I must
travel back down the mountain in the tragic bus
Since, not finding my purpose here
could be fatal at some
juncture in the near future.
Many others
seems comfortable with their roles
and appear to be familiar
with their place, and are
acting out their daily routine
with regard to their given position
on the pecking order.
Prisoners are calmly
shuffling along in their shackles
by designated jailers.
Scientists and medical personnel
are donning lab coats of white
and scrub blue. Busy
heating vials, and working with
lab rats.
Others are sprinting off
in all directions to cues
only they seem to understand..
employees with mostly unflattering
pictures on their lapel or around their necks
The senior staff
scientists move much slower than their assistants
Quality control slinks around without identification badges or
photo I.D's.
The higher ups
are dressing down,
some are so blatantly sloppily dressed
as to appear intentionally passive aggressive.
Could it be the one who looks most poverty striken wins...
Or maybe my whole sensory experience was just some double blind experiment while under hypnosis.
in the student wing of their teaching hospital
They're funding dream research
and I am their next lab rat in some
well funded study.

Each morning, my
alarm clock goes off and I awaken
wash my face, take a shower
eat, read a little bit
listen to the morning skinny on my radio
Then, I get dressed and head out
to catch the danger bus
white knuckling it
up the same steep canyon road.

I desperately seek some link,
some answer.
Finding someone who can answer for me
why I am in this repeating loop.
One day while, again,
high on the summit
I realize I have to urinate.
My bladder is screaming.
They seem to have hidden the men's rooms.
I consider doing my business
outside, up against a bush
But, I continue my search for a bathroom.
There's plenty of women's restrooms
but no men's room anywhere in sight.
Finally, I find a lone men's
bathroom in an obscure side corridor,
tufted away in the crack
of the maze of a hallway
in this huge complex.
Most rooms and hallways
have labeling marked for usage
except for this one,
and all the labeled rooms look like the last one.
There is a honey-combed mono-architecture
hemming everyone uniformly in
instead of open, space to navigate
comfortably.
As I begin relieving myself
I realize I am also having an orgasm.
Then, as I pull up my shorts.
a lithe, in shape, and well coiffed,
snappily dressed young woman approaches me
grabs my head on both sides
and begins soul kissing me
sloppy and hard on the mouth.
She has a white bandage
which passes for an arm band
wrapped around her elbow
She appears charmingly feminine
but, I have experienced a long
exhausting,
and treacherous day and I am fresh out
of romance.
The more contact I have with her
the less attractive she appears.
She has the general appearance of a woman.
With long, shimmering, golden blond hair,
clear complexion sleek, tall, thin
But, there's a hard, calculated coldness about her.
She has a feral animal scent trail.
She has an air about her of 'I've been around
don't even try to comprehend my essence.
Suddenly,
A man whispers in my ear,
in a language
I scarcely understand
explaining to me
she is a successful bookie.

Her work fascinates me more than her kissing
So, I ask her
what it's like
making book for a living?
Her smile is
at once disarming and
challenging,
I sense she is uncomfortable
and wants to squelch my inquiry,
and change the subject
I bypass her not so subtle hints
Instead,
I press on with more questions.
Now, her body language is screaming
for me to 'zip it.'
Despite her distress, I press on
with a straight line of questioning
She frowns hard and decides it's best to
put distance between us.
Soon, I am back on the danger bus
heading down the precarious mountain road
with the same bus driver,
that quiet man in black
who is able to see without seeing.

Written by and all rights reserved as is by;

Buddy Bee Anthony
All republishing rights Reserved
by the author.