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bus boy

entry picture

 

The boy on the bus has eyes like fishes

not dead cod eyes but

perfectly elliptical

fish shaped

slanting.

 

His father is old, his mother

wears sensible shoes.

 

An only child

alarmed by noise, counting solar panels

obsessed by bus timetables.

“What’s that?” to everything

clutching at mother when a branch

clatters on the roof

or the sky goes black.

 

“We’re going the wrong way!” he wails

as we head off to another tiny hamlet.

Racing down wet leafy lanes we skim through a stream

that fills the road after the downpour.

“What’s happening?”

 

The boy with eyes like fishes

swims through dark waters.

 

   

 

 

childhood

◄ nothing...

With peacocks at kew ►

Comments

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Ann Foxglove

Thu 14th Jun 2012 17:54

Hi Steve - maybe it was the photo that made you think of Deliverence (one of my fave films actually). I am really interested in your comment about conforming to norms - you may well have a point - it's a really interesting thought. Being totally untrained in poetic things (A level eng lit and the only poetry was WB Yeats - which I do like) I feel a bit cast adrift in the slipstream of what is best. I feel it takes more experience or confidence than I have, on occasion anyway, to decide for myself. My poems pop out on their own so when I have to make decisions and edit etc that is the hard part and I guess I would then listen to other voices.

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Ann Foxglove

Wed 13th Jun 2012 15:57

Oh thanks Julian - re "spectrum" if you mean what I think you do then no, he just had strangely lovely eyes but seemed strange himself. I was an only child and I think it is often the case . . . being strange that is!

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Julian (Admin)

Wed 13th Jun 2012 15:51

wow, this is wonderful, Ann. A fish out of water, with out of touch parents:
His father is old, his mother
wears sensible shoes.
Superb condensed description there.
I love the 'going the wrong way' bit and imagine it's to do with Cornish buses' propensity to veer off down tiny lanes, seemingly all of a sudden, and he just has to speak his mind, probably to the chagrin of a sensibly-shod mother.
Are you hinting at 'the spectrum' here? Forgive me being thick, but he does come across that way.
superbly done.

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Ann Foxglove

Wed 13th Jun 2012 11:20

Have chucked out the last bit - which was - in case anyone wants to know:
"On the bus home he talks non-stop
a bolder boy – he’s been inside the lighthouse!
“I want to be a bus driver when I grow up.”
he says.
Father is on a short fuse – sits far away...."

Agree it is better without - thanks Greg :)

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Ann Foxglove

Wed 13th Jun 2012 10:53

Thanks Greg - you may be right. I was thinking of cutting the last line, now thinking maybe more pruning necessary! I guess, cos it was a real event (yesterday) and it seemed to be a bit of a happy ending for him I wanted to include it.

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Greg Freeman

Wed 13th Jun 2012 10:46

I really like this, Ann, particularly "An only child /
alarmed by noise, counting solar panels /
obsessed by bus timetables". I just wonder if you might consider ending it after "swims through dark waters", since that is a powerful line and seems like a natural conclusion to me.

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