Kevin Hulme

Lines Written On A Bus

Is there anything more painful than travelling by Bus, 

Save wearing a ‘Hair Shirt’ with a Barbed-Wire Truss? 

For it to arrive on time is expecting the Earth,

Like asking Bill Gates for his PIN Number and Worth. 

There I stand at the STOP and the Bus sails on by,

For the Driver wears ‘ Blinkers’ to the side of each eye. 

And when ‘Godot’ does turn up it’s packed to the brim, 

It’s like a scene from ‘Where’s Wally’ for the space to fit in. 

Bowed heads they give prayer in the Church of the New, 

To the Gods that are : ‘Apple’, ‘Orange’, and the divinely ‘O2’. 

How unhappy and glum the people all seem,

Happier faces on Toffs meeting ‘Madam Guillotine’.

Headsets to loud , sly Vapers at the rear,

A Baby’s lungs at the front give assault to the ear. 

The floors  laid with Trash and the Seats are unclean,

When last saw a Mop ‘Lady Chatterley’ was ‘Obscene’. 

Oh! there must be a better way to get from A over to B,

Without the Slings and Sharp Arrows to my fragile self dignity.

‘Hell is other people’ a Wise Man once said,

This Perdition on wheels is the sample we dread. 

So as we get to the end  I disembark with relief ,

Next time I will walk and save myself grief.