Ode to Metrobus

Oh perfect vehicle of Democracy

Where half-sane and insane rub elbows and knees

With balls in one’s face

And arse in another’s

I have ridden you in many lands

In cold Socialist lands

I rode you to university and back

Until the driver’s strike left students

Shivering, riding our thumbs

Extorted or ignored by morning commuters

In warm Capitalist archipelagos

I rode around the girth of islands for a buck

Envious of joyriding homeless

Taking a break from their park life

Sharing cigarettes and expired canned foods

In teeming Communist nations

We rode into the growing guts of economic Babylon

Fishtailed through horsetracks become highways

Rain dripping in my ear whenever we made a hard left

Sleeping locals drooling on our shoulders

In this sleepy industrial has-been

I slip into your crowded belly every morning

Pressed on all sides by sleep-sweaty bodies

Of salarymen who would jump out of my tub in a public bath

And half-dressed girls who would run from me in a night street

Oh perfect vehicle of Democracy

Where over-employed and under-employed rub elbows and knees

With cellphones ringing in one’s ear

And crying babe in another’s

I have ridden you in many lands