Seat

 

Seat

 

On every bus throughout the land,

here’s just one seat. He stands

solitary, alone, on speaker-phone,

positioned as a noisy private stone,

like some sort of piffling henge;

low-cal, non-alcoholic brew-dog

with space for access, egress,

because all other stones have fled.

Your remaining seats are twinned,

recede backalong, take on the chin

the less room to stretch out limbs

looking on in mute suspicion

as is generally English tradition,

when cuckoos long ago have flown.

So, he lights no Norwegian fires,

sure, but maybe our seat aspires

to be the one to burn and blaze,

influence some latest craze,

be remembered till end of days,

or join other seats side by side

who stretch far and down the aisle.

But, now he is content within him,

has vacant eyes and vacant grin,

blotches all over seat coverings

and has been known to drool,

mutter warnings of loose stools,

in gay abandon scatter blithely

trash about his feet in panoply;

browns, blacks, greys - cannot be

moved upon to stow or sort,

chucked around without thought

to trip up your unwary fools.

Your edition of broadcast news

for the duration of the cruise,

in woolly hat and knitted spork,

Barnados or from Oxfam bought,

he’ll talk; when he’s done, talk,

and if he’s over, talk some more

in pitch impossible to ignore;

seats that walk, use the door

to drag his mongrel by its lead,

and release it so it could be free

then shout: ‘Run, Forest, run!’

With every sweep of second hand,

his phone will bleat and demand

our seat’s call and response;

other seats affect nonchalance,

look away, but behind their lips

are twisting teeth, biting cheeks

ignoring inner voice that speaks

of treacherous, unseemly things

until at last it comes, the bus brings

our solitary seat to a place of rest,

decides which way it would be best

to disembark his pigpen of scrap,

while peering this way and that,

step stumbling, strident grumbling

and those feckless wonderings

why nobody came to meet or greet

the trash he's strewn about his feet.

Now here is left our solitary seat,

somehow lonely and incomplete,

but, fear not! It’s never very long

before another seat comes along.