wonderful - dangerously accurate, I suspect
come back soon and finish this
tweaks in text
Terri )O(
----- Original Message -----
From: "arthur007" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, April 26, 2002 7:42 AM
Subject: New sub : Bus
> I am going on holiday for 2 weeks and my computer is going in to be seen
> to. I dread losing some work and so I post this rough copy in order to
> be able to recover it later, hopefully.
> Nevertheless any comments would be welcome. The sketches are all of
> fellow passengers on a regular morning bus when we get to travel for
> only 20p. Known as the Wrinklies Express.
>
>
>
> Monday's Bus.
>
> The sameness of company
> comfortable as old slippers.
> The Wrinkly Express
> lurching through a spring
> that froths and flutes
> down avenues of blossom.
>
> Des
>
> Lauded and applauded,
> of some standing [clever]
> in upper echelons of the Lions,
>
> he smiles and greets us
> from under a Wisdom-snapped-neb cap
> and over a lurid sneer of a tie
>
> bedraggled as a field-dog's ear.
> His luncheon meat sandwiches
> and flask, rolled in his mac.
>
> He goes to join the ramblers "over Leeds someplace".
> Nods and smiles, affable and knowing
> as a bulldog in a TV ad, oh yes.
>
>
>
> Billy and wife
>
> mount the steps.
>
> He, cherub-cheeked, pink, pert as a robin,
> clutching a black-bound psalter
> with lolloping dog-tongued bookmarks.
> Ringing greetings are bestowed
> upon the congregation of the bus.
>
> She, raddled, rotund and rouged,
> basks in the benison of his presence
> glows in adoration,
> beams through a snaggled fence of teeth,
> moves to a separate pew. [lovely]
>
>
>
>
>
> Gunner
>
> Same dirty hat, greased and jaunty,
> jammed on uncut, unkempt hair
> that sprays in wisps, sprouts like privet.
>
> The same sag-arsed trousers
> crumpled in Andean folds over
> the same perhaps-once-white trainers.
>
> Always at the the same stop
> for the same seat
> on the same bus.
>
> Behind glasses,
> dim as an uncleaned aquarium, [uncleaned? a bit abstract?]
> dewy eyes swim through gloomy deeps.
>
> Tattooed hand, self-inflicted once-upon-a- love,
> where " Linda" grips and fondles the yellowing bone[-]
> -handled head of his stick,
>
> Does he notice spring?
> What music plays as he sways
> to the waltz of gear and brake?
>
> Her at 48
>
> tight prison of face tics
> startled by a torn ticket
> like a deer
> hiding in a thorn thicket
> anorak chained to chin
> life locked out
> self locked in.
>
> The Oriental Lady
>
> Short stride
> almond-eyed
> sallow skin
> cymbals thin
> seem
> to sneeze
> as she turns to watch
> strange hills that match
> her incongrous
> by-gum voice.
>
>
>
> Duggan.
>
> Brown as ale,
> hair white as the head on a pint of Guiness
> face finely etched as a street map of Dublin,
> jacket, a size too tight or body a size too big,
> he shuffles to his place,
> ticket clamped in the mallet of his fist,
> oh, any seat will do,
> apologies, copious as the Liffey,
> strewn in his wake.
>
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