X Factor Journey

Bus Shelter

We stand in stoic silence,
peering through perspex panels
for the bus with our number on it.

All shelters in time are visited
and we, waiting, occupy ourselves
with a thousand tiny distractions

until we see it nose slowly
around the corner, and greet it,
not with welcome surprise

but with wretched relief
and, as we feel the press of coins
in clammy palms, we wonder

whether this is a poem
about buses and bus shelters at all
or, rather, one about life and death

because that’s the kind of thing
that poets write about
and we climb aboard anyway

as it is warm inside
and this one has free wi-fi.

A hall.
I saw gig.
Was ill.
A-ha.

He danced
like a man possessed
one fevered Saturday night.

He gave me
the heebie beegees
and I left the floor in fright.

Some blamed it
on the Boogieman
but it was a John Travoltageist.

If I were called in
to construct
a soundtrack for my life,
I should make use
of muzak.

Each song indistinct,
immemorable,
and entirely
without consequence,

as it fills out the silence

between floors

until
the door
opens
for me.

Dr Augustus Meek
had a puritanical streak
through the streets of Preston.

Kept his pants and vest on.

I here that their everywear,
those people who don’t know
there their from they’re.

It where’s me down,
they’re choice of word;
there grammar should not be scene
but herd.