Like a Stranger at a Bus Stop

I sat in traffic today on my way to a meeting and watched for a few minutes, the interaction of a couple at a bus stop. At least, I imagined they were a couple. They didn't actually speak but he looked, she glared, they moved apart. He looked again. The bus came, and pulled away. He had gone but I could see her walking away from the bus stop. This is what I imagined he though as he sat on the bus, alone.

Like a stranger at a bus stop you looked at me,

Your rage obvious in your clenched shoulders,

Your silent mouth,

Your telepathic tantrum drumming in my head,

'don't make a fuss, don't embarrass yourself'.

Your eyes narrow like a lobster,

'You are less to me than dust'.

I open my mouth, to plead, to reason

But you are gone,

In a waft of perfumed air,

Face averted,

Like a stranger at a bus stop.

Play the Game

They try to crawl into your lives

And whine and wheeze and spit their lies

That fall like rancid acid rain,

Destroying peace with bile and shame.

These sycophantic nightmares breathe

Rank torpid air, that serves to feed

Their own desires, base and low,

Just how much lower can they go?

The finer points of life soon lost

Fair play and honour turned to dust,

For eating out their souls for gain

Mere shallow empty husks remain.

But trapped inside their rules they stay

And die a little more each day,

And soon forget they'd ever been

More than a hating, lie machine.

So pity them, they cannot see

Just how much more they could have been.

The players played, alone, undone

For this damn game will ne'er be won.