You Took the Last Bus Home Read online

  Brian Bilston is a poet clouded in the pipe smoke of mystery. Whilst little is known of the man behind the pipe, he has built up a following of fans through the sharing of his verse on social media. He has been described by some as the ‘Poet Laureate of Twitter’. This is his first collection of poetry.

  You Took the Last Bus Home

  This edition first published in 2016

  Unbound

  6th Floor Mutual House 70 Conduit Street London W1S 2GF

  All rights reserved

  ©Brian Bilston, 2016

  The right of Brian Bilston to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Art direction by Mecob

  A CIP record for this book

  is available from the British Library

  isbn 978-1-78352-305-4 (trade hbk)

  isbn 978-1-78352-306-1 (ebook)

  isbn 978-1-78352-307-8 (limited edition)

  For all the Bilstons

  Dear Reader,

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  Introduction

  You will either be reading this as an introduction to what you are about to read or in search of an explanation as to what you have just read. You may not even be reading this introduction at all, in which case the point, if indeed I was about to make one, is moot.

  Regardless of your motivation for either reading or not reading this bit, I would like to take this opportunity to describe, in general terms, the key characteristics of the poems that you will encounter in this collection.

  Firstly, some of them rhyme. And not just the kind of moody half-rhymes you may encounter in the work of my contemporaries, but proper, perfect rhymes. This is quite deliberate on my part. I do like a rhyme. But not all the time.

  Secondly, to demonstrate my poetic versatility, some of them do not rhyme. Those poems were harder to write as I had to select words from a much larger pool. It has been estimated that there are over one million words in the English language, and so hand-picking each word to go into a poem has proven to be something of a Herculean labour.

  Thirdly, there is variation in length and width. Most of these poems have been shared in earlier, more primitive versions on social media, particularly Twitter. There are some which were written to be small enough to fit in a tweet. Other, more expansive efforts were photographed and posted up as pictures, grainy and indistinct like their author.

  Fourthly, many do not follow standard poetic forms and structures. This stems from a deeply held conviction that expression is more powerful when rules are abandoned and that poetry needs to free itself from the shackles of the literary convention. That and the fact that I don’t know what rules I am breaking.

  There are pieces in here which I am not even sure are poems in any academic sense, and you will discover words written inside Venn diagrams, organisational chart structures, Excel spreadsheets and the like. I wrote them simply because they were different to preconceived notions of what forms poetry should be found in, and they were fun to write.

  Fifthly, some of them may contain jokes. But not necessarily ones which are funny. I suppose that means I shall be disapprovingly exiled to the bleak, literary island commonly known as Light Verse with the expectation that I spend the rest of my writing career complaining about how I just want to be taken seriously. Well, I don’t. I want to be taken unseriously, at all times, even when – perhaps especially when – I am writing about serious things.

  Finally, many of these poems are about everyday places and situations: waiting for an online shopping delivery, going on a work ‘awayday’, staring at a mobile phone, taking the last bus home. They would often be partly composed while I was in the middle of these situations, either quickly thumbed into my phone or clumsily assembled in my head.

  I suppose these are not traditionally regarded as being the stuff of poetry. But there is poetry to be found in anything if you look hard enough.

  Brian Bilston,

  March 2016

  You Took the Last Bus Home

  you took

  the last bus home

  don’t know how

  you got it through the door

  you’re always doing amazing stuff

  like the time

  you caught that train

  The Ice Cream Vans

  It has been warm this winter

  so it was not until today

  that I saw the vans begin

  their slow rumble south –

  startled into movement

  by the early January frost

  which had gathered softly

  upon their windscreens

  before waking them suddenly

  as if from a night sweat.

  I watch this strange procession

  as it passes, a curious sight

  suggestive of fun and funerals –

  an ice-creamed cavalcade,

  a cornettoed cortège

  of lollies and 99s,

  all pinks and whites

  and Mr Whippy markings –

  bound for North Africa.

  Not all will make it.

  And, as they pass by,

  I hear the wayward chimes

  of Greensleeves, O Sole Mio,

  Half a Pound of Treacle,

  for these are the songs

  they sing to each other

  as they start their journey

  and I feel myself charmed

  even though they do not

  chime for me.

  For We Shall Stare at Mobile Phones

  Streets shrug as we roam back to our homes,

  obstacle courses of lamp posts and cones.

  For we shall stare at mobile phones.

  Landmarks languish and attractions close;

  statues, museums, cathedrals, disowned.

  For we shall stare at mobile phones.

  Reading gets shelved, poetry and prose,

  the dusty rebuke of neglected tomes.

  For we shall stare at mobile phones.

  Conversation falters, dries up, unflows,

  feelings once said lie buried, unknown.

  For we shall stare at mobile phones.

  Yes, we shall stare at mobile phones,

  when we’re together and when we’re alone.

  For we shall stare at mobile phones.

  And when we die, let us hope that they’re thrown

  into the pit with our crumbling bones.

  This poem was sent from my iPhone.

  A Surprise Ending

  They say

  we all have a book in us

  but only a few

  have two

  Like Howard

  who devoured

  The Selected Plays of Noël Coward

  but then,

  to his surprise,

  before his eyes,

  he saw his abdomen distend

  and it came out Howards End.

  University Challenged

  The Navier-Stokes equation governs the behaviour of what form of matter?

  Monday night, on the sofa,

  slippers on, supper over,

  hand resting upon my chin,

  brow furrowed and leaning in,

  my mouth shapes to form a word.

  But nothing comes that can be heard.

  Which two heteronyms are words used

  to describe workers who have joined together

  for self-protection, and a chemical compound

  that has not dissociated electrically?

  What IS a heteronym?

  The opposite of a homophone?

  I’m sure this is the kind of thing

  I must have known onc
e, though,

  before my brain began to fur and slow.

  On the TV it seems they all moved on

  several minutes ago.

  Alamogordo, the site of the detonation of the first atomic bomb in 1945, is situated in which US state?

  I have been thinking

  about Henderson’s tie,

  considering the sequence of its stripes,

  and pondering why

  anyone would choose to go

  on national television

  dressed as their father.

  Perhaps Henderson would rather

  it were nineteen seventy-three;

  the tweed jacket with elbow patches,

  and the glare of the studio lights

  off his horn-rimmed glasses.

  The rule of reaction called ‘double displacement’ or ‘ionic association’ is also known by what one-word term?

  I spend some time

  wondering if Dugdale

  has ever slept with Pratley

  or whether she is put off

  by his acne

  and that funny little fist-pump he does

  when he gets a question right.

  I have just noticed Davies.

  He has not said a word all night.

  In cytogenetics, what term describes the entire chromosomal complement of a cell which may be observed during mitotic metaphase?

  More minutes pass.

  I only watch Davies now.

  I long for the light of his buzzer.

  But it is never him.

  It’s always another.

  I sense his awkwardness

  growing inside like a cancer,

  the silence between question and answer.

  I’m sure it’s not that he isn’t clever;

  he is just a pause that goes on forever,

  never right, never wrong,

  going, going, going,

  gong.

  I turn the TV off

  and put the kettle on.

  In Praise of the Comma

  How, great,

  to, be, a, comma,

  and, separate,

  one, word, fromma,

  nother.

  Night at the London Palindrome

  A hall.

  I saw gig.

  Was ill.

  A-ha.

  Carpe DMs

  Doc Marten boots,

  you take me back to my roots,

  when you were in cahoots

  with both of my foots.

  You have style. You have sole

  (air cushioned to make you hover),

  with optional steel toe-caps

  in case there’s a bit of bovver.

  Punks, poets, construction workers

  all enlist you for their cause,

  tread upon carpets and concrete,

  office and factory floors.

  Dependably Manufactured!

  Durably Memorable!

  Doughtily Multipurposeful!

  Diametrical Moccasins!

  Carpe DMs!

  The ultimate in utilitarianism.

  To persuade me of otherwise

  would be an act of futilitarianism.

  Frisbee

  Frisbee whizzing

  through the air

  above our heads,

  over the sand,

  into the water,

  onto the waves,

  out to sea.

  You cried a lot that day.

  Frisbee was a lovely dog.

  Literal Thinking

  The first time I remember seeing you

  was when you fell off the scaffolding

  and into the wet cement below.

  You left quite an impression.

  Later we met at Literary Sculpture class,

  where we would fashion the great writers

  out of wicker. Me: Joyce. You: Twain.

  You really made your mark.

  We only ever kissed once

  but I recall that fateful bluster of a day

  as if it were yesterday.

  I was blown away.

  Poem, Revised Draft

  I had to write this poem again.

  I left the first draft on the train

  and now it doesn’t look the same.

  The original was a paean to Love,

  to Truth, to Beauty. It soared above

  the everyday and all that stuff.

  It would have healed estranged lovers’ rifts,

  stilled the sands on which time shifts

  and stopped the world before it drifts

  further into quagmired crisis,

  ended famine, toppled ISIS,

  employed ingenious literary devices.

  I tried my hardest to recall

  its words and rhymes, the rise and fall

  of the carefully cadenced crawl

  through the English language.

  But it caused me pain and anguish

  for there was little I could salvage.

  It certainly didn’t end with a line like this.

  Ping to My Pong

  you put the sing in my song

  i’ll be the king to your kong

  you are the bing to my bong

  i wear my thing in a thong

  Thirty Rules for Midlife Rebellion

  Stack dishwashers in unruly ways.

  Do not take part in ‘dress down Fridays’.

  Eschew quinoa and banish kale.

  Burn your copy of the Daily Mail.

  Do not use the tongs provided.

  On escalators, stand left-sided.

  Admire yourself in car wing mirrors.

  Run in corridors, with scissors.

  Avoid all weekend breaks in yurts.

  Never wear Ramones T-shirts.

  Pretend you do not like Adele.

  Eat a packet of silica gel.

  Do not watch golf at The Belfry.

  Never ever take a selfie.

  Do not accept food substitutions.

  Ignore all products called ‘solutions’.

  Do not go for early morning runs.

  Avoid the lure of Mumford and Sons.

  Mix with people who are not like you.

  Add a syllable to a haiku.

  Put your darks in with your whites.

  Do go gentle into that good night.

  Destroy your Boots Advantage Card.

  Treat Top Gear with disregard.

  Finish your crossword by bedtime.

  Do not sign up for Amazon Prime.

  Take cover from all psychiatrists.

  Do not read poems disguised as lists.

  Dive-bomb into swimming pools.

  And never EVER follow rules.

  The Explosion

  NEVER put a Minto

  in a Vimto.

  That’s how the dinosaurs

  became extincto.

  Words

  Words are absurd.

  Words can stick in your throat,

  particularly the ones

  you can’t get in edgeways.

  Words can teeter on tenterhooks

  on the tip of your tongue

  (until someone comes to take them

  right out of your mouth).

  Sometimes you can even have a word in your ear.

  A word in your ear!

  If it was a long word, like onomatopoeia,

  you might struggle to hear.

  Words can be slurred.

  Words can be blurred.

  Words can be misheard.

  And listeners deterred.

  Words can fail you,

  utterly.

  Read My Lips

  I don’t need a lover

  who’s a looker,

  just someone who knows

  the shortlist

  for this year’s Booker.

  Somebody who holds

  a view on

  Ian McEwan,

  or is satanically well-versed

  in Salman Rushdie

  and who might find it cushty

  to share pillow talk

  about A.S. Byatt.

  Yes, that would be a riot.

  I could never judge a lover

  by her cover,

  and let myself be swayed

  by make-up or a fancy hairdo;

  not if she were intimate

  with À la recherche du temps perdu.

  To be clear, I’m not talking