Poetry and the Bus

On my bus to and from work, I get the wonderful opportunity to read some incredible poetry submitted to Metro by their riders. Of course, I mean this somewhat sarcastically because there's so much of it that's not good or possibly too deep that I have zippo clue what they're talking about. Anyway, this stuff is legit - not things etched into seats or anything like that. Every year Metro asks its riders to submit their written poems, usually centered around a theme, for display on the buses. I have a good friend who tried submitting one once and was declined. Whatever. Hers was totally good too, unlike some of the others.

The other day I spotted a poem that really hit close to home, which I'll explain after the poem. Here it goes. Ahem.

We are the Bobbleheads
by Candace Jarrett

We sleepy bus riders have such small desires:
a window seat, the hope of no unfortunate sounds.

We drowse upright, uptight,
nod and bob next to strangers.

Here, friends would be loved and so useful.
We'd lean on them, sleep and dream we're cephalic toys for sale at Archie McPhee.

To this poem I'd add no unfortunate smells also. Ugh!

If any of you have had the luxury of taking public transportation of any sort you most likely can relate to this little diddy. You see people fall asleep on the bus all the time, their heads bobbing all over and sometimes their bodies sway from side to side. In fact, I fell asleep the other day and jerked myself awake! That's attractive. hee hee!

This morning a girl sat next to me and promptly fell asleep. Little did I know she considered me her friend as mentioned in the poem. She leaned on me quite bit on our ride into work. I felt like I was in a people version of bumper cars, or bowling with guards because she kept bouncing off me and her other neighbor but mostly she was leaning on me. Hey girl! Can I get you blanket? Read you a story? Sheesh. Poor girl nearly fell over when the guy next to her left. After I got off and with no one there to be her bumper I wonder if she made it to her stop without falling over. I wonder if she even woke up.

The bus is a crazy place to be sometimes.

The end.