We closed for submissions at 10am on Saturday 1st September. Please read the poems below and choose the one you like best. The authors names will be added after voting is complete. Just vote for one poem and please don’t vote for your own, it won’t be counted.
Votes to be in by Saturday 8th February 10am please.
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Poem 1
After 7/7
Hello, Mum, it’s me. I didn’t catch the thirty, but…
Nine years on from then, although my world stopped,
it’s still turning.
Hello, Mum, it’s me. Just called to say we’ve landed,
and the children want to tell you that it’s raining.
But somehow here it’s different: sudden cloudbursts,
then it’s over – not grey drizzle like in London.
We took the bus in Christchurch, but the open top was windy.
There was an earthquake here, but the views are just fantastic.
I’ve set up Skype connection like we said, do you remember?
You can see us every day; you’re always with us anyway.
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Poem 2
Big Jess
Big Jess gets ready for Big Red.
Thinks:
This is gonna be the place.
Chooses:
Big Yellow, smears Candy Yum.
Hooks:
Long silver snake, gold hoop
to little ears
Thinks:
Like my ears.
The bus there is not Big Red.
Is tiny seat, is sweaty pit.
Big Jess closes big eyes to loud stares,
blocks tiny ears to quiet hiss
from skinny jean at the back.
Big Red has a disapproving small door.
Inside space flings arms wide.
Big Yellow turns tricks like Ginger,
lines of Fred’s winking
like Marilyn’s diamonds at the bar.
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Poem 3
Big Red Outing
I skipped the usual path today
to where I was expected,
hopping instead on the first big red bus
to come my way, a routemaster storming down the road
like a thumping jukebox of a bygone era.
I sat on the top deck looking down,
and with every tune that came into my head
I sang along, and as I rode
the streets were blessed with rock and roll
and stalls of polished fruit.
And so uplifted, I fell into conversation
with two ladies fair, like me adrift,
one with blazing hair and a necklace of pearls,
the other delicate as an orchid,
too beautiful to look at for too long.
They told me they had noted my efforts
to expand the boundaries of the day
and which met with their approval.
With them, I stayed on board all the way
to the Happy Hour, our mystery terminus,
where with a drum roll and a circus shazam,
our glorious bus burst through a paper wall,
leaving a jagged corona of crimson, and the driver said:
Now that’s what I call making an entrance.
Oh, let’s all stop here and have fun.
We said: that’s okay with us.
It was cocktails for the ladies, for me a foaming stein
as we came to the conclusion
this really was the end of the line.
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Poem 4
Our Number 30
Do you remember
Boarding our bus
Our route to happiness
Without any fuss
Our number 30
That was going nowhere
Just like our love
It was so hard to bear
This was our secret place
No one knew we were here
Where I sipped my wine
And you drank your beer
Through rose tinted glasses
Our dreams could come true
We saw a future together
For me and for you
We would sit side by side
Making our plans
Eyes only for each other
As we tightly held hands
Today as I pass by
I fondly recall
Our treasured moments
And hold onto them all
But off of our bus reality reigned
We would never share our life
We had too many prior commitments
Including a husband and wife
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Poem 5
Has Banksy Been Here
If it is him,
Where does he get all the aerosol sprays and
How can the authorities call it vandalism?
When Bristol art and paint shops do so well.
Stand back, admire what the light produces
And captured so well-
A red bus hurtling out of a bridge,
The red bus now turned in to a bar.
Can you imagine the hen nights, and
The married ones giving advice!
Couples in the corners, lads holding up the bar
John Travolta and Samuel L Jackson
From Pulp Fiction having a drink, in light
Conversation on drugs and gun warfare.
The big wigs from Transport London, sipping.
Yes,
It must have been Banksy who drew the red bus.
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Poem 6
Happy Bus
Brash as red blood, the bus bursts through the paper of our misery
With its promise of pleasure; a welcome chalked unnecessarily.
Who wouldn’t feel welcome? Here for hours Tuesday to Friday
Happiness prevails, borne on liquid wings to a stationary, cool community.
Any may come – the universal sign makes clear – a bar, against which
To lean while the hours pass. But be careful; there’s not just drink
Here; drink’s trouble lurks – clouded eyes, nightmares, unwanted
Attentions – and, possibly, blood, in various violent forms.
Don’t stay too long, then; it won’t do you that much good
And even if you have been waiting for ages
For a happy bus
There’ll be another one along in a minute.
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Poem 7
Vantage Point
Everything seemed possible
in nineteen seventy five.
The four of us upstairs
on the double decker
Rory keeping time
drumming the metal seat post
Tony strumming guitar
to the lyrics we had learned
and you saying I looked like Stevie Nicks.
The conductor likes Fleetwood Mac
doesn’t tell us to keep it down
insists we need the practice.
We are harmonising
to the chant of wheels
sway of passengers
scent of faded incense.
Now I have a bus pass
no double-deckers butterfly
our town, I don’t want to
eat a burger or drink a beer
on a bus going nowhere.
I trace a name
on an imaginary misted
window pane and under
a purple hat chase the years
signposted on a stretch of sky.
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