Sunday Bus

 

 

When I’m counting pennies for the Sunday bus;

When I ask for the manager and make a fuss;

When we’re both two balls of dawdling dust,

Will there still be time for us?

 

When we’re asking bar staff for a cup of tea –

Go home instead, to our beige settee –

Just two statistics for the DWP,

Will you still be excited, to be with me?

 

When our calendar’s funerals, rather than friends,

When you twist your back every time it bends,

When I’ve cracked my varifocal lens,

Will you stay with me, til the whole thing ends?

 

After decades of joking, “Where did we go wrong?”

When we never thought it would last this long,

Though both infirm, still going strong:

I hope that we’ll still both belong.

 

 

For Blair. 

 

 

Bargain

 

 

We sold the land we stood on: leased the trees,

Flogged off ancient forests for our fees,

Decided we could blue-sky-think the skies

And monetise:

 

Put clouds of waste where once were clouded dreams,

Turned poisoned rivers into income streams;

Bottled up the oceans, put a price

On paradise,

 

Auctioned off the centuries ahead,

Our final days, the very earth we tread,

Everything that’s beautiful and real.

It was a steal.