Poem 37


My first year in Wellington 1981 flatting in Hataitai and riding buses to and from town every day gave rise to what I thought might make a series of bus poems … 

… blue bag was a kind of bleach found in every NZ laundry, also used by our mums for bee stings …



Late Bus – March

Blue bag clouds roll loose
soggy and unsqueezed

in the street I just heard
a Maori Old Boy sneeze
as they pass
on the season's first training run

dark familiar figure by the corner
I will tap him on the shoulder

     winter is coming old chum



Late Bus – March