Creative Writing MA student Rose Thaysen offers milk readers a witty poem inspired by the terrors of the U5.
First experience with you, Somerset transit:
Gatwick rail replacement bus.
Our relationship has not become less frantic.
Two trains, one bus later, my suitcase and I were
still one point three miles from the blue dot.
Google hadn’t thought to mention
the insignificant detail that is: Outside Term Time.
And being the only link to Tesco
doesn’t make you the big shot,
when three-inch snow cause enough tension
that the result is starvation.
Oh Bath Bus, you are not underrated.
You sound like an underqualified plumber.
Please get your ventilation upgraded
the heating only works in summer.
In winter we sit against your cold frame
with no isolation, as our condense water-breath
steams the windows of your upper deck.
I am sad to say, you are truly to blame
when we, after a brush with freezing-death,
reach the destination tense and sore.
You demand that I change three times
just to get to the next town over.
Days are ruined by bus driver-crimes
I’m not exaggerating. Theft by refusing
that there is such a thing as a ‘Cross-Over’.
It is possible to have just one ticket you know
(as they do in, like, all other countries).
Conclusions: No more bus-cruising,
nobody saves with Faresaver, the only way
to and fro the airports, is the real pro,
National Express.
