Bus Ride At Night Poem by Gert Strydom

At quarter to five
the driver refuses,
that I get on a bus
in Burnett street
because it is already full.

There are men, woman and children
and we talk various languages
while we wait for the bus
and I see a car guard
dancing in the street
while he does tricks like a clown.

We wait on the next bus
and the afternoon passes
and the bus is very late
and it stays away
and just Putco and North Star busses
stop at other places.

At dusk the bus appears
and it’s got a double deck,
but is also full
and on the top level the roof is so low
that I bump my head
while it draws from the curb.

There’s no place to sit down
before we travel halfway to the city
and there’s a crowd of people around me
and we sit tight against each other
and in the front a child is holding onto a bar
while she licks the window with her tongue
and try to draw spit lines.

The bus braids through cars,
but it takes longer than an hour
to ride two stages
and a woman calls her husband
to pick her up at church square.

In Visagie Street the cars stand in a traffic jam
and it becomes night
while we wait in the traffic
and I embark from the bus
and twist through the pedestrians
and everywhere there are people
that stand in dark corners
and alleyways
and shout at each other in foreign languages.

At Church square I see stars in the sky,
but uncle Paul looks friendly
while the lights
of a few cars passes by
and I see how his men
are protecting him
and there’s nobody else in the street
and I wonder what to do
if the last bus has already left.

I wait at night at a bus stop
and an old black man
comes and stand near me
and we are both glad,
to catch a ride
on the last bus.

The bus is lighted brightly
And it’s comfortable and hot inside
and I see the zoo passing by
just before the bus stops for me
and red lights
disappears in the distance
and the evening wind tugs at my jacket,
but my house is near.