Ecumenical News

(I wrote this one evening last week on my commute home from USC to Hollywood.)

Waiting for the Bus

I am waiting here on the sidewalk
Of a rushing thoroughfare,
My face aimed in the opposite direction
From where I want to go.
But no!
I am not waiting for a bus;
I am waiting for the bus.
Not one full of putty-faced, limbo-lipped commuters like myself.
Not the one with a destination.
I'm waiting for the bus that lets the world go by,
The bus that is where I want to be.
The bus with watermelon headlights
And licorice windshield wipers,
The bus with the funhouse mirror folding doors
That distort my distorted body
Back to the normal of my dreams.
I am waiting for the bus
With the jolly dreadlocked voodoo driver
With gold teeth engraved with smileyfaces
Handing out mangos to boarding passengers
Who instead of paying busfare
Make offerings to each other once inside:
A man in a suit gives a child a sea-shell;
A girl presents an old woman with a red lipstick
With which the old lady dabs her cheeks
And rubs in the livid color;
A plumber hands a banana to a secretary;
A janitor presents a Uruguayan coin to a stockbroker.
A damsel with a dulcimer plucks a delightful ditty
On the back bench seat
As birds sing and flutter in cages
Suspended from the ceiling.
Tropical fish, unperturbed by the rolling and bumping of the bus,
Float in aquaria mounted between the windows.
A skull-capped old man with a white beard
Smiles as he pours sweet tea from a copper samovar
Into little glass cups with silver spoons
And presents them to passengers playing dominoes and mahjongg.
A mechanic dabs a silk hanky at the grieving tears
Of a widowed bartender.
Instead of announcing stops, the driver periodically recites
Verses of mystical Sufi poetry.
I'm waiting for the bus
That takes me everyhere.
It has pillars made of unicorn horns
And seats upholstered with llama wool,
And hand straps made of cashmere.
You pull the stop cord and a calliope plays.
You put money in the fare box, if you feel like it,
And candy comes out sometimes,
And sometimes more money comes out than you put in.
Yeah, I'm waiting,
I'm enjoying waiting,
For the bus!