From The Cynglish Beat, by Tim Reynolds. 2009.
THE BUS DRIVER’S LAMENT
Bitch and whine all you like, but here’s the bus driver’ side of the sordid story:
If you want to get him going, get her off on a transiting tangent, simply ask about...
Jammed up, crammed up, nerve-fraying rush hour traffic;
Perfume-bathers and their throat-tearing, eye-tearing, floral-acid stench;
Shower-avoiders and their throat-tearing, eye-tearing, armpit-acid stench;
Traffic-jamming bus stop parkers;
Unfair fare scammers;
Seat-slicing vinyl vandals;
Drunk punks, hammered homeless, sloshed salesmen, bombed bitches in come-fuck-me pumps;
Junior high flirts with senior high cleavage;
University girls full of their own self-importance... and senior high cleavage;
Old buses that can’t climb hills in the sweltering summer burn;
Old ladies who can’t walk or hold on but just have to shuffle shuffle shuffle past six empty seats to sit at the back while... we... all... wait;
Cranky old schedule-memorizing clock-watchers late for mall-walking club;
Turn-signal-challenged yahoos, idiots and gene-pool-cleansing dumb-fucks;
Bottle-pickers with torn and tattered, beer-leaking, plastic bags of recyclable refuse;
Bicycles needing rides but no bike rack to oblige;
Jaywalkers stepping out and bike messengers swerving in;
Toxin-smoking, cloud-wearers dragging fumes on board to share with one and all;
And iPod isolationists cutting off the world at volume beyond understanding.
Then there’s the upside, the side that makes a driver drive, an operator operate...
Kids from college full of knowledge and educational enthusiasm;
Toddlers full of giggles and wiggles and moms glad to just sit for a bit;
Seniors glad to be out and about and commuters glad to sit back and relax...and let
someone else deal with Rush Hour Madness;
Homeless folk happy for a warm ride and a welcoming stranger’s smile;
And harried, clock-challenged, bus-chasers thankful for a driver who saw and stopped
and gracefully accepted their gratitude before taking them on down the road, home.
~~~
Saturday, November 21, 2009
The Cynglish Beat: Riding the Bus
"Riding the Bus" came about after a particularly long shift wherein everyone seemed to be a freak and I was the misshapen ring master. It made me realize that for some commuters the time spent with fellow commuters is often longer than the time spent with family, especially when the commute is a long one. And then there's the quality of the people you meet on public transit... youch.
From The Cynglish Beat, by Tim Reynolds.
RIDING THE BUS
Riding the bus, the train, the bus, the shuttle...
riding it all and all of it riding on a two-fifty fare.
Spending more time with strangers travelling to and from work than with our own families before and after, work. Strangers who twitch and swear and spit and shove, behaving better than the people we love to love, from below or above,
Reeking of solvents or bathed in Old Spice or new Axe or that industrial strength Brut from left over from Christmas 1979.
Buses stinking of vomit and skunkweed and garlic and old socks, the trip to and from work and career and other-life is like two hours trapped in a teenager’s closet. Not just any teenager, but your goth-dressed, face-pierced, crappy grades,
I-want-to-live-with-the-other-parent, teenager.
Two-fifty a trip to get bumped and grinded and fondled --- but no flowers, no chocolate, no simple “I’ll promise to call you but will lose your number in the next five minutes”. The freedom of frottage without commitment.
But on a bus you can jab jab jab an elbow or step on a toe, hard on a toe or fart never-so-gracefully in the face of these daily stranger relationships and no one says a word; but treat your causeless James Dean teen with the same disdain and you’ll hear from Family Services the very next day.
And the day after, and for the rest of your days until the divorce is settled, the custody battle done, the bank account drained and the Beamer traded in for a used Toyota Tercel that never looks as good on page two of the local paper when they announce you’ve had another trial date.
Not so, the bus, the train, the bus, and the shuttle --- no names exchanged, no hatred grown, no love lost, no lasting impression made.
So give me diesel fumes and ignorant strangers and vomit on my shoes just so I don’t have to go home to Hell in the home, homey in its own hellish way.
Give me back the grazing touch of a total stranger, the hardening of my nipples, the weakening of my knees... and then their cellphone rings and ABBA’s Dancing Queen causes us all, passenger strangers one and all, to lash out, bump the coffee hand or the phone hand or grinding grind a heel into their imported Italian in-step; because it’s all fakey fake, all falsely hoped for...
...and all going to happen again for all our tomorrows, on the not-so-Express bus up and down to Downtown.
~~~
From The Cynglish Beat, by Tim Reynolds.
RIDING THE BUS
Riding the bus, the train, the bus, the shuttle...
riding it all and all of it riding on a two-fifty fare.
Spending more time with strangers travelling to and from work than with our own families before and after, work. Strangers who twitch and swear and spit and shove, behaving better than the people we love to love, from below or above,
Reeking of solvents or bathed in Old Spice or new Axe or that industrial strength Brut from left over from Christmas 1979.
Buses stinking of vomit and skunkweed and garlic and old socks, the trip to and from work and career and other-life is like two hours trapped in a teenager’s closet. Not just any teenager, but your goth-dressed, face-pierced, crappy grades,
I-want-to-live-with-the-other-parent, teenager.
Two-fifty a trip to get bumped and grinded and fondled --- but no flowers, no chocolate, no simple “I’ll promise to call you but will lose your number in the next five minutes”. The freedom of frottage without commitment.
But on a bus you can jab jab jab an elbow or step on a toe, hard on a toe or fart never-so-gracefully in the face of these daily stranger relationships and no one says a word; but treat your causeless James Dean teen with the same disdain and you’ll hear from Family Services the very next day.
And the day after, and for the rest of your days until the divorce is settled, the custody battle done, the bank account drained and the Beamer traded in for a used Toyota Tercel that never looks as good on page two of the local paper when they announce you’ve had another trial date.
Not so, the bus, the train, the bus, and the shuttle --- no names exchanged, no hatred grown, no love lost, no lasting impression made.
So give me diesel fumes and ignorant strangers and vomit on my shoes just so I don’t have to go home to Hell in the home, homey in its own hellish way.
Give me back the grazing touch of a total stranger, the hardening of my nipples, the weakening of my knees... and then their cellphone rings and ABBA’s Dancing Queen causes us all, passenger strangers one and all, to lash out, bump the coffee hand or the phone hand or grinding grind a heel into their imported Italian in-step; because it’s all fakey fake, all falsely hoped for...
...and all going to happen again for all our tomorrows, on the not-so-Express bus up and down to Downtown.
~~~
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