National Poetry Month

[brigdh]

Metropolitan Metaphysics James Flint

The back seat of the bus baby!
as any urban wayfarer will tell you
without batting an eye
or quivering a whisker
is where you gotta be at!
Where the nocturnal mysteries of the city
accumulate
like snow flakes in the December horizon
where flying fists sprout
unexpected
like deranged
death blossoms,
Where you can see the witch doctor
in the black overcoat
flash his bus pass
and take his seat
without him seeing you first!
And that's just where I'm headed

to the far right seat in the corner,
where all the real nickel slick
ice dudes
are destined to be
(as soon as they step aboard and pay their fare)
It's just metropolitan meditation
in the rear of a rapidly accelerating 54C,
oblivious
to the gun metal grey skies
darkening outside of my window
aware of only the cityscape of passing Pittsburgh
Electric Mosaic of crumbling brick
and Steeler Sunday celebration
drunkards disguised as Slim Coyote
swaying eerily
with stolen tobacco pouches
beside the bus schedules
ghosts of dead jazz musicians
sitting in seats reserved for the elderly
(an old lady, withered hoodoo mama
call her Cajun Katie,
born between the teeth of a Louisiana lightning storm
gives me the Evil Eye over her bag of groceries!)
And that bus driver
Whoooooa!
Quite the holy
madman is he,
expertly steering
that zooming stagecoach
through bustling streets,
like Hendrix in heat
a sleek steel bullet speeding
through crosswalk
and traffic light
and stop sign
and universe
at light speed arrow
pedestrians yielding
bums on Liberty
see the comet's tail comin from the tailpipe
and start acting all Orion
'cause
this ain't no ordinary bus
no regular remnant of hulking '80s crap
and patchwork motor is she
chugging
brimming over with rush hour commuters
and misbehaving children
naw,
this bus is a clandestine marriage
of public transportation
and subsonic rocketry,
juju mystified jazz specters,
Indian Gods in ghostly forms,
and most of all
Me