Time Travel

An old, rickety bus
The old rickety bus
Drab and destitute
Too old to run
Forsaken, left
In the old junkyard
By Amir’s house
Across her school
Could take you places
We had learnt
In childhood
From someone
Who had learnt it
The hard way
The old rickety thing
Bare and dirty
Fillthy
Useless
Like an old whore
Like her grandma
Left slone to rot
In a bare, open road
The old rickety bus
Can take you places
Anik da told
He was the older one
And therefore
Wiser and he had:
A thin line of black forming.
Thin and sparse
Above his cracked Lips
With pockmarks all over
His bloody, red face
He was the older one
And therefore
Wiser, surer
And he said
“Come Come, chalo!!”
Speaking those words
With a british accent
With a bree-teesh-ac-cent
And we shouted
Shrivelling, trembling
And he shouted back
“Get in you bastards!”
And we boarded the old
Rickety thing.

We were proud
And courageous
Gallant, restless
We were excited


To go to places
Unsung, unheard of
Finding a seat
To sit on was
The only
The solitary
Problem

We were ready to go

Those were the days
When childhood
Was not a cud
To be mulled over
Fags, girls and coffee
Today, I know
An old rickety bus
Could take you places
And I am proud
I learnt it
The hard way