Repartee
Slim gets off the no.3 bus
at the corner of Hastings and Main
-the corner of Desperate and Lost-
having travelled east on the 99 express,
his nose stuck in the feral stink
of some guy’s armpit,
wishing, not for the first time,
that he was six inches taller.
A country lyric twangs in his head
something about “the losing side of town”.
He surveys the wreckage all around him:
a guy with a raw scabrous face
scratches frantically;
a bundle of rags twitches in a doorway;
people are scurrying back and forth
like they’ve received a message
from an alien dispatcher
that the mother ship has landed,
and they can’t find a toothbrush;
further on in a laneway that smells of piss
a man and a woman, both dressed in black
with sweating raddled faces
sway back and forth shouting:
Fuck you! No! Fuck you!
in a profane loop.
Repartee, Slim says,
to no one in particular,
what an unexpected bonus.
This poem first appeared in The Galway Review
Taking part in OpenLink over at dverse
Stopdraggingthepanda 
Well, that was certainly a witty write. Strange events at the corner of Desperate and Lost
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Thank You, Truedessa!
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Sounds like a tough place to be in, when you are down and out!
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When you’ve been there you never forget it. Excellent with a touching resonance with Buk.
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Thanks Lisa!
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🙂 ❤
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love this; love the hornet poem just as much 🙂
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Thank you John and thanks for checking out the hornet poem!
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you might like to check out one or two of mine 🙂
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Forget the toothbrush, where’s the ship? (K)
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Ha! Toothbrush first, then the ship!
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We all have our priorities…
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The imagery here is amazing. . . at the corner of Desparate and Lost. Your writing is so effective here….I am reminded of riding the T in Boston when it’s crowded…and some folks have to reach their hands up and hold on to the loops as they ride to steady themselves and in the summer, there is invariably someone near me who is pitted out….yep. Your image exactly.
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Thanks Lillian! Much appreciated!
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You put me there in that stinking armpit! 🤪 It’s a mad, mad world!
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So many great lines… having to stand with your nose in somebody’s armpit is for sure not a good place to be.
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Thanks Bjorn!
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