skonen_blades

Something broke in Canada
When Greyhound left the road
That giant silver dog was how
The population flowed

This country’s so gigantic and
The population small
It’s wild we can drive ourselves
From town to town at all

So many people can’t afford
To fly our nation’s skies
And now they’re locked in their small towns
Due to the dog’s demise

Our country has grown huge again
Thanks to the travel cost
I swear our freedom’s been curtailed
Because of what’s been lost

The people fleeing partner’s fists
The teenager’s first roam
The ones who’ve grown too old to drive
The first time one leaves home

The way to take a seat and watch
This country’s land roll by
The mountain’s twisting forest pass
The prairie’s endless sky

The night bus humming through the snow
The books I read to sleep
To think of all that’s lost with that
It makes me want to weep

I think the next prime minister
Would win our trust and hearts
If they would promise it’s return
If someone had the smarts

A way to cheaply tour and see
The nation where we live
Without it, we’re a fraction less
And that I can’t forgive

I feel as if a vampire drained
Us all. A little bit.
Rideshares help but they’re not as
Dependable as it

“We need it back,” I’ll say and say
Until I can’t make sound
I’ll mourn the loss forever of
Canadian Greyhound




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It must have been the bus driver’s first day
Clean, crisp shirt
Mid 20s
Clean-shaven
Thin
Unwrinkled
Bow tie
BOW TIE

Smiling and greeting each passenger
Eye contact and gratitude
One passenger asked for a free ride
And the driver happily obliged
Complimenting the passenger’s manners
He cheerily informed the bus at large
of the reason for the two slight delays
And the length they’d be stopped

Like an alien flower blooming here
Like a talking dog blowing my mind
Like a transplanted organ before rejection starts

I looked at him like a cat must look at a magician
Trying to understand a trick

This was the number 20
He drove me down commercial
I left the bus just as he was
About to turn left onto Hastings
Through the nightmarish car wash
Of Vancouver's infamous intersection
Where zombies walk the earth
And fentanyl kidnaps every day
And fetal alcohol syndrome smiles
And jagged edges shred souls
And syringes play darts
And reality breaks down
And solutions become useless

And I feel like this driver
This fresh-faced, positive, force
Became a metaphor
This young driver
Became all young people
All bright-eyed, well-meaning youths
About to head into the future



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And just like every winter morn,
Vancouver did its best
To dampen dreams and moisten schemes
Pacifically Northwest.
I huddled at a bus stop
In this city on the coast.
A drooping, dripping, hunching, haunting
Sullen, soggy ghost.
I disdain umbrellas
But their utility
On days precipitous like this
Becomes quite clear to me.
Unlike the sidewalk-tinted sky
The color leeched to grey
The pavement mimicking the clouds
Its like. It’s dusk. All day.
And then the sound of rain's refrain
A backdrop susurrus
A blanket smothering all sound
With lullabies of “ssshhhh”.
Wet wheels go by on wetter streets
And no one talks to me.
And I dont talk to them. It's cool.
We get wet quietly.
Like overloaded sponges who can't
Soak up any more
Waterlogged and bogged and sogged
We're flooded to the core.
We marinate like human steaks.
We shower in our clothes.
Submerged in turgid waterfalls
Beneath the storm cloud's hose.
I waited here with sopping beard
Saturated thus,
When miracle of miracles!
I saw. A fucking. Bus
Our saturated souls rejoiced!
Our outward wet demeanor
Changed not a jot but deep inside
Our keening hearts grew keener.
The bus horn beeped as we all steeped
Like teabags in a cup
Of water cold, forgotten, old
We wished to be picked up
The hopeful wish was quickly squished.
We saw, while paralyzed
The most Canadian of sights;
The bus apologized.
It's blushing sign said “SORRY” and
I felt myself grow nervous.
The word rolled up replaced by more
Those words read, “NOT IN SERVICE”.
But as my hope extinguished like
A campfire in a flood
I saw a sight that struck a light
Inside my poet blood.
The sign had more! It rolled again.
I saw the very best
Error that I've ever seen
The next word was “EXPRESS”.
The SORRY NOT IN SERVICE bus
EXPRESS went by and through
A puddle deeper, dirtier,
And closer than I knew
And as the tepid, bus-induced
Tsunami splashed our way
And coated all our coats in coats
Of puddle-pudding grey,
I felt reborn! A christening
A change felt through and through
Because I felt a metaphor
Had nearly drowned me, too.
That bus was going nowhere fast
That bus was an “EXPRESS”
“NOT IN SERVICE” but so clearly
Working nonetheless.
Just like me, I thought with glee.
As years accumulate
And time's sublime dark tendency
Makes years accelerate,
And decades pass as if a month
Has only just flown by,
We fall through time and it speeds up
Faster til we die.
Ironically, ability
to deal with life recedes.
We can't pick up passengers.
We can't fulfill their needs.
We drive alone and empty,
Going faster temporally,
While losing that which makes us good;
Our functionality.
Ignoring stops while people wait
Our faces sorry signs
And “not in service” says our eyes
Through old, beleaguered lines.
My face, though over-moisturized
Just smiled through the drenching
As others cursed, my damp face grinned
And though my teeth were clenching
And chattering from frozen slush
And water chilled my face
I had a damp epiphany
While rooted there in place
I had become what I beheld
I knew ‘twas always thus
From now on, I’d be the “NOT IN
SERVICE EXPRESS” bus.


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