Public Transport

Traffic stacked back up the hill;

the flash photography of sun

on rain- glossed pavements.

I am travelling incognito,

reading a book I have re-titled

‘Do Not Disturb’.

Still a voice drags me off the page,

out of Carver’s ‘Afghanistan’,

it’s demanding

‘Which stop is it for the bus station?

I’ve got to get to Nottingham

or some place miles from here!’

I force myself to answer

‘I think it’s the one after next’,

and then, because I feel I have to,

 ‘my sister lives near there’,

but he’s screaming ‘I’m leaving before I kill her

or she kills me!’

Beyond the mirrored windscreens

starving Gothic arches roar

above the Portakabins

On College Green

A camera crew is waiting

For news to happen

While the bus trundles

inexorably

towards our stops.

© Deborah Harvey

From Collage: The Best of Poetry Space 2010 and one of the runners up in Poetry Space Competition 2010, judged by Philip Lyons

G.B

I saw George Best

on a bench today
he was leaning forward
legs crossed
all angles, elbows and joints
smoking
spittle grey beard
straggle haired
I stopped the car
and shouted :
"George"
he nodded knocking accidental ash from ciggy
"were has the magic gone?"
he looked up
dropped the dog end
it fell in a floating spiral
with one touch of his knee
one twist of his hip
the Strettford End rose
the gasp before...
toe to ball
past man after stock still man
looped the ball over Wilson
as the match was lit
pandemonium ensued.
Sparks hit the floor
George said :
"Andy were's yours?"
I flickered through the reel
trawled the back catalogue
looked at my disshevelled hair
my bruised arms
and said:
"George, I never found it"

Andy Scotson

Today's offering is from regular Poetry Space supporter Andy Scotson. I thought it would entertain...

Bumble-bee

The wind is at my window

as a bee comes storming in –

big burly bumbler banging

at blurred glass and stained timber.

He hurls himself around

buzzing like a pylon in a thunderstorm.

He spurns my hat

doffed to guide him out.

He zooms like a space-ship

on edge to be off to the stars.

As his fury grows, I shrink.

His roaring envelops me.

If this were the war

he would be a bomber

broody with high explosive

over crystal city.

But he’s found the gap and is away

helter-skelter over the brambles

out of my muddle into the storm.

I draw the curtains across the wind.

© Martin Bates

This one comes from Green Spaces: poems from Poetry Space Competition 2011 and was highly commended by judge Rose Flint. The remit for the competition was for poets to write on green themes, green spaces that had personal or wider meaning.

This is well worth a read and is available from the online shop