The Trip On The Full Bus Poem by Eliot Bukowski

As I pass,
I watch horses on shelterless fields,
patchworked clouds mirroring the land.
the land, green, confounding the absence of water,
distant hills, grey beneath light rain,
dust-coloured pillows occasionally yield
to encroaching blue-patched sky.
I look down at the shaking of my hands.

Goats climb the lime hills,
Grey, centuries-old trees lie fallen,
rotting in their lonely, self-contained and bounded cells.
slowly pointing north, south, east.
Cows patiently lie, waiting for rain.

The young are not cruel,
they are kind.
Old age is cruel, it takes away what you want,
lets you keep things you don’t need.
Functions malfunction.
Lesions bleed.
The dull cold ache of missing out,
replaced by the red hot rage
of missing out,
knowing it was your freely made choice.
knowing you should regret it.
But the shaking of your hands belie the effort.

Brown cows, in browner fields
watch us pass by.
Leaving us all to wonder who is wasting their time.

Folded over mattresses,
empty bottles, paper, and other roadside debris.
All the things the world must suffer,
so we can all feel free.
I don’t feel free, I feel trapped in the rats alley by your rubbish.

In the distant city a woman walks in line,
with three men through the deserted terrace.
She’s waving her arms, as a crazed raver, above her head.
It’s noon and her three friends, lined up,
Walk slowly, unaware of this silent gig.

The ‘bum’ eats a chocolate cake whole (a)
while fifty metres away another starves,
himself not far from battlers
doing it ‘hard’, drinking in fashionable coffee bars.

An old woman hand dances on the sea front
as tourists, safe at a distance, laugh as others laugh
skulking round corners.
I wish I had the courage to dance,
But I’m not so cowardly that I laugh.

I sit in a park by the quay
Watching the couple feed the birds undisturbed
by the chaos they bring to gulls and pigeons
An image of romance keeping us warm in cold winter hills.

My thoughts turn to a group of people on parade.
The five walk in line along the deserted terrace
A scene from a rock video perhaps.
The girl on the right waving
her arms, rave like,
ignored by her cohort.
It is a trendy action in a cool street.

(a) I use ‘bum’ for the sake of my rhyme, if you’re reading this man, I apologise for putting you down.