Omnibus

I suppose I wanted to see what it looked like...

Omnibus

Slack duffel coat and nicotine fingers

Jolted blustered convivially through the bus

Old Elvis hair, drawn, sucked-in, chin on nose

Grey grey grey, skin clothes life, only yellow

Paint on the artist hand, grasping chrome

Like a pint, keep from falling ‘till later on

When the wooden rest becomes the floor

Carpeted in fallout tapping and too much

Swimming, lazily with crisps and carrot

And memories of young Elvis chiselled eyes clear

Seeing a good night out, studied nonchalance

Of cigarettes, picking choosing, never quite the right one

-‘sides you wouldn’t get one like mam

Cooking ironing bed and breakfast and a bob

Sticking with mates, snooker darts dogs horses

Run with the pack run to the uniform

Of oblivion and hatred; take the fear of those different

Back to the refuge of haircut and shoes

Through the bus, hold the chrome, oily shirted hair cut

Cheap wine and cider fuel fear in bus-stops, at corners

Voices grating in the mating shout of hopeless procreation

Helplessly adding recruits floundering in life’s mutation

Of the sea of weed, sarcassoed sarcophagus in trauma

Slamming the door graffitied and battered shut

Rejecting reviling daring paring their views

Only one needs to stand, voice a word of dissent

Escape the trap - escape the norm

See the hope that roots, the river that courses

In each is the same but livens varied soil, not in a mob

Through violence and terror; instead peace, natural plan

Finding discovering in order of chaos of whom, or Son

Of man, woman, man or woman, to respect in tolerance

Help, be helped; forget and remember unwrap the past, steer

Clear: exploding colour (of the blue green orb) from an old maiden garret

Glance grasp bright, through muddled reality, so touch

Freedom, unchained bigot beget reveal someone more

Than (just) celluloid sex, animated clones mightily right, strong

To survive superior inferior ulterior exterior motives at home

Defend deter so cash the dividend, provide more buses. The old fellow

His greater choice (that’s his right) no state to impose

On his right to drink and smoke or pick squalor, no fuss

To move from the self-righteous seat, perfumed shield where the human smell lingers.

 

 

John Colclough