On Brighton Buses

Prince Petr Kropotkin

Is ferrying the workers

Back to the newly-declared Anarchist Republic

Of Moulsecoomb

The Driver is returning their fares

Dividing them equally among the passengers

Aubrey Beardsley’s squeezing through

Great pink labia tunnels

As giant cocks sprout up like trees

Along Saint James’s Street

Hermaphroditic aristocracy

Fuck opulently

Outside Morrison’s

In impossible positions

While their bus

Is conveniently

Delayed

Dusty Springfield quite ignores

Her pre-decided route

And cutting up Dyke Road

Sings her siren song out to the Downs

And closing his eyes the driver counts

To ten, a million

Mascara tinted teardrops well up

Around Seven Dials

And roll down to the sea

Norman Wisdom, skidding wildly

Careering across Grand Parade

Colliding with the Who

Patrick Hamilton is stalled

Beside the West Pier

Shabby and dissolute and watching

As Virginia Woolf goes down

Beneath the waves

Ralph Vaughn Williams

Hums hymns

To Hollingbury

Bob Copper roars in harmony

Passengers paying their

Fares on Adam Faith

Are told by the driver that

She don’t want money

She won’t tell them

What she does want

And even when

They offer her

Their hearts, then all she does

Is play it cool

The traffic now is backing up

All the way down Falmer Road

And they suspect that she’s making

A fool of them

“Well I’m offering you a diamond ring”

Shouts one, in desperation

“But all you do is turn me down”

“What do you want, oh boy?”

She quietly replies

“You’re going to town on me”

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Pursuing Moriarty

Drives furiously across the Downs

Towards Beachy Head

They disappear into the mist

But no-one sees them fall

On Edward Booth all of the passengers

Are stuffed and mounted in

Grotesque positions

Clawing at the windows

The driver takes

Pot shots at postmen

He seldom misses

Omozap and Afterblatz!

On Jeff Keen’s bulging, dayglo-painted

Upper deck

Dr Gaz still battles with

Vulvana, rayguns blazing

Collages flash five frames a second

In the windows

As the bus careers across

The council gardens

Trailing silver foil and coloured

Plastic through eternity

(c) 2014.