Best Bus Fare Poems
Pity my city
I pity my city there is no dignity in this city
There is no justice no freedom
Street children in a locked hall, shocking
County council overworking
The city must be clean so some humans are garbage
Some are cabbage, the garbage pay the damage
No houses sleep on spillage
But there are human rights
There are human right activists
There is the department of justice
All filled with malice
Pockets practice
Gross malpractice
Injustice, silence
You are in court
Guilty of court contempt
Another charge
The bail or the sentence
I’m bailed out in silence
Next time just bring your presence
Retain your silence
I was told
You will be safe.
My phone is gone, my shirt is torn
No bus fare so I walk alone
I think a lot, go back home or not
I remember I am a poet
I write a poem, a paradox
Pain in the city
I pity my city there is no dignity in my city.
Never what I came for
Likewise not what I prepared for
To be robbed by those I voted for
I am not happy anymore
My city is no more
I don’t wish for more
I just want go
not the city I know.
not where I wanted to grow
cartels make us bow
Now, now, now, it is time.
Time to know I am grown
And carry always my identity card
The men in blue are out bad
And always never forget also to carry ‘kitambulisho ya polisi’
Hawa watu ni mabeast na mafisi, human hyenas
time to tie up my seat belt whenever in a matatu,
sina mia tano ya kulipa coti kila saa na sitaki kulala ndani siku tatu
two days I am locked up inside my own head
spinning spinning, my thoughts are dead
the life so far I have led
no step has been made
no journey finished
No house furnished
Time is running and broke is sickening
My heart is listening, my brain is calculating
I have to act quick, just do something
The weather so good for chilling, but bad for singles
Life is unfair
No dream has been real
No love to heal
No feel
No deal
Just the bill
More and more bills
The city is fattening
Wanjiku is sickening
From Nys to health to Tunnels
It is all on the channels
How they on the seat eat
Meat
The citizen kitty is gone
The city is torn
Get the president on the phone
Call the press, what must be done be done
Impunity will not rule this city
Dignity must be restored
This city no more a pity
Bring back the citizen kitty
Say no more
The city.
steely-eyed bunny wabbits
she smells like perfumed soaps and spray paints
i want parts of her reality in unnatural ways
steely-eyed bunny wabbits couldn't be more bold
as she is traipsing round the backstreets at a quarter to three
with a dogeared copy of catcher in the rye
just wants to be heard
just wants somebody to know how it feels
she writes it all out longhand on college ruled paper
a diary of an unkempt heart
her youthful rebel head filled with strong dreams
gonna make a difference
gonna get heard
so she stuffs all her worldly possessions
into a beat up backpack
long with bus fare and snacks
gonna find us some steely eyed bunny wabbits
and wrestle bright futures and rainy days from them
gonna get our fare share
this is why she is special to me
as she chases butterfly's in army boots
as she the navigates lovely night
(reference to: "the catcher in the rye" 1951 novel by J. D. Salinger)
Dad said this about the penny
Have one in your pocket to touch
You will never, ever be broke
Times, I have existed on the penny
Have one in your pocket to touch
I have many in various vessels
Times, I have existed on the penny
One day, I paid for my bus fare
I have many in various vessels
The church seems to like my pennies
One day, I paid for my bus fare
Pennies remind me of what Dad said
The church seems to like my pennies
You will never, ever be broke
Pennies remind me of what Dad said
Dad said that about the penny
________________________
September 5, 2012
Poetry/Pantoum/Penny Memories
Copyright Protected, ID 09-418-532-05
All Rights Reserved, 2012, Constance La France
Written for the Standard contest, Penny Pantoum
Sponsors, Rhonda and Cyndi, HM. Judged 09/24/2012
The magnificent sun is shining bright
Flooding the natural earth with white light
My emotions are immersed in anger
My strength is usurped by pangs of hunger
I think of years of economic boom
While I am leaning over an old broom
Right in the middle of the room that I sweep
I strive to put more efforts not to weep
Digestion systems in the stomach grind
Prompting signals of despair in my mind
I think to leave the club of sun-seekers
As I take turns between sweeping and breaks
I hear the highly screeching sound of brakes
As the bus driver brings it to a halt
Near the beer hall that sells the beer of malt
I decide to make short rhymes in rumbles
As I decide to do no more grumbles
Because on the table that will put no bread
But I have great strength of a thoroughbred
To carry me through the longest thoroughfare
Because I have no pennies for bus fare
But I have to follow the job-seekers
As I ride this inconsistent city bus at 4:22 not 4:15; I realize that I am the miscreant among people who simply are traveling home. Clearly the people on this bus should be looking at ME as the dirty vagrant begging for bus fare. They should be looking at ME with despondent judgment. I should be looked at with a disdainful glance; for my intelligence is clearly questionable.
I have turned into the crazy guy talking to himself at the bus stop. Cursing at the bus for being 4 minutes late. Public transportation is filled with people who are riding for convenience. People who don't want to pay for parking as they are dropped off at their parked cars. People who live in the inner city with no other choice but to ride the bus. I ride because of stupid choices that have landed me here. I am the minority. The anomaly. I am the person one shakes their head at, thinking, what an idiot. Can I not blame society or my childhood? Can I not envy the "normal" people driving with freedom blowing in their hair? I have grown envious of the mundane. Is there no sympathy for morons anymore?
I have a paper due on thursday
and i haven't started
Bills pile up like laundry
Specking of drity clothes, I'm wearing my last pair of underwear
and my heart hurts
not emotional, phsically,
like its about to cave in
been look for a job the last few weeks like christians have been look for Jesus
Not enough bus fare to get to class
My head is pounding
...and the hunger doesn't help.
buses cabs subways
how I get around
no subways are here
so buses will do
for six days a week
cities subways
when I am there
cabs cost too much
subways are quick
hitch hiked some
younger days
now buses
bus fare
one way
stop
I've invested too much time
Into people I thought were genuine
It's baffling
How many people you know
You think have your back
But actually don't
When you need me there
I show up
When I need you
It's you know I would but
I've come to learn
I ain't the only thing desyroying me
The other part of it is misplaced loyalty
It's crazy to me
How you could treat people like royalty
But when I'm in a hole
They can't even throw a rope to me
That's some bull and bull is bull
Even if it smells like potpourri
Some people just don't care
They'll throw you under the bus
After you give them their bus fare
I'm good enough to help you out
When no one would
But when I need you to vouch for me
It's a shoulder shrug
I'se been working my ass all day
in them government agencies in this here hot city
and them only giving me this little to pay
for food, rent and give them back the change in my grocery bill and utility.
First, I can't sleep on your job but you sleeping with my money
Using it to fill your belly, while I here contemplating
what making salting and what go be food
giving them prisoners three meals a day
while I'se in the free, dying for hunger
(poor me!)
Personally, me thinks dem crusty hand, old niggas
must board old trucks like my granny
tell dem hol' on tight and truck dem offsite
to work for dem food and a better life
an' dont figet the shackles! Put 'em on three by three
(modern slavery).
Lest they go free.
Professionally, I kibbain' ma mout'
Make dem bun tax money
Til dem get let out.
An dis yere darn government-
tolling our country's rusty, old bell-
Off with their heads.
sitting on the high chair we holding up
(if we let go, dem go fall)
tearing out dem dry eyes looking for more than them really deserve
(slackness dis 'ere!)
Might lose my job tomorrow
really, I no care!
cause what is the difference between poor and poor working class?
when all day I'se been working off my ass
Fi tit-bit more than bus fare!
While in the city, you need exact bus fare.
Without it, you can't go anywhere.
A trip across town you can easily arrange.
Have the right amount because the driver has no change.
Just hop aboard the bus and have a seat.
Commuting across town is fun and neat.
Inspired by another member's poem.
Sometimes I don't hear so well,
Sometimes I get confused
English is a tough language
Verse, tense, structures, sentences
It's an easy language to get abused
I sat on the couch, facing the TV,
And on the coffee table before me,
What did I see?
A glass, half filled, a pen and pad,
A handful of change, that's all we had.
I asked my room-mate,
Who was in the next room,
What time is was,
I heard her boom;
"Quarter to Eight"!
Well, I wasn't hungry,
Rest assured,
But to keep the peace,
I endured,
Swallowing a quarter,
Maybe now she'll tell me the time?
"Okay, done!" I rasped, voice
thick with the unwashed filty
quarter.
"Okay, okay, I did what you said I ought'a
Now can you tell me the time?"....
Thinking, "My God, she's thick,
just like my daughter!!!"
"Quarter to Eight!!!"
This time, more emphatically...
She's getting annoyed,
This I could sense
So I reluctantly swallowed
Another Quarter,
Thinking to my self, "Thank God,
I didn't have to do it with 25 pence."
At this point, she entered the room,
Hair wrapped in towel...
Squeaky-clean from her shower,
She glanced at the table,
Frowned, and asked,
"Why'd you take part of
my bus fare?"
"How will I get to work?"
I didn't know why,
But I sensed somehow,
I think I'd been a jerk.
I blurted out; "Didn't you
ask me to ate those Quarters?"
My sheepish grin of supplication
belied the fear inside.
I only wish I could think,
Of some clever place to hide.
She stared at me, as if amazed,
Noticing me for the very first time....
"So what happens if I ask you,
"Can you stop on a dime?"
Would you sand atop said coin,
Motionless for all time?
Or would you swallow the dimes,
assuming they are desert, and
henceforth the meal was over??"
I was feeling dumb and ridiculed,
As I tried to shrug it off
Opened 2 bottles of wine,
Yanking, twisting off the corks
And went back to my regular foods,
Knives and spoons, and forks!
HOMELESS
Pale palms spread ! Lie flat, damp on a beer mat
lip stained pint glass, bubbles rising,carbon gas.
Puddle, pooled, red-eyed perspective, insulin injected.
Life lives in a toilet visit, dripped, stained, unzipped.
Crabbed-walked, twisted-talked, bent legged kneeling
urine smell immune, numb, no feeling.
Blurred haze across table strewn, stool, chair maze
falling body held in a strangers grasp, a sick rasp.
Limp-mouthed words fall out, joined in spit
short breath from Hell and split trousers smell .
Cold gutters await, dark, alone late
and no home, not there ! No care.
Please bus fare ?
Sometimes we pay double extra
During inflation
Price rise in cooking oil
It has been a long time
We're eating waste oil
Increment in electric bills
Already suffering from
An extreme hot day
Price rise in cars
MCO lingers
We're unable to change cars
Price rise in household electrical appliances
Have to buy an expensive
All-purpose cooker
Price rise in worshipping supplies
Have to ask for God's forgiveness
Rise in bus fare
Pity the children
Free education but burdened transport fare
Price rise in chicken eggs
Have to use less tasty duck's eggs
Price rise in farm fresh drinks
All along no confidence
Price rise in beers
Not all the people's favourite
Price rise in sugar
Saccharin is already widely used
Price rise in bread and mee
Have to change to
Less tasty rice buns and meehoon
Besides inflation and tax increase
We do pay double extra
For people's carelessness
Ignorance
And greeds
All finally will result in
An eternal suffering
Forget to count the presents under the tree
Look beyond the gifts and tinsel
they will be tucked away or forgotten
Forget the gnarly parking lots
Soon everyone will go home
Failing at finding the perfect gift
Forget to buy that little black dress
that is just 1 size too small
and will only be worn once
Forget to drink at all the parties
and then not remember how you got home
or how you acted in front of your boss
Forget how little money you have this year
and using credit til you exceed your limit
buying high price items till you are broke
Don't forget the homeless that will receive no gifts
no thought of tinsel only hunger
Don't forget the ones that have no cars. They have no worries of full
parking lots They would just like to have bus fare
Don't forget the ones that don't need or want a little black dress.
There are no parties for them to attend
They would prefer a second hand jacket to stay warm
Don't forget the ones who have no money.
No cash or credit cards to buy the things they need.
Their only wish is a warm blanket to sleep with on cold winter night
Don't forget the meaning of Christmas. Giving to others less fortunate
sharing and loving each other.
Don't forget
We school friends met
After five decades
One came by air
One by car via
One motorcycle share
One by public bus fare
We school friends met
After five decades!