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ON SEEING A BUS WITH A SIGN “SORRY I’M NOT IN SERVICE”

Stuart Butler

Thursday, March 22nd, 2001

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 I saw a bus the other day,
No destination or number at the top,
Just an apologetic sign saying
“Sorry I’m not in Service”;
What intrigued me was not the fact
That the bus could read and write,
Which is,
Admittedly,
Remarkable enough,
In itself,
But rather,
How many lower division centre forwards
Should have carried such a sign
Hanging around their necks,
Saying “Sorry, I’m not in Service.”
They could then have pointed to that,
In the heat of the fray,
Instead of fecklessly, recklessly,
Constantly calling for the ball,
With their right arm held aloft,
Tapping their chest with the fingers of the left hand,
And then constantly misheading the ball into touch,
Or even worse, miscueing it to an opponent,
In a dangerously advantageous position.
But, undaunted and not downhearted,
They always clamber up from their muddied embarrassment,
Oblivious to the pointed donkey braying from the terraces,
And, once more, go about their business
Of calling for the ball with voice, arm and hand,
Certain in their self-belief and solipstically self-confident
That the next time will be successful.
It isn’t.
How much kinder and humane would it be,
If we were to protect them from this constant mismatch
Of ambition and achievement,
By letting them design their own sign,
And even let them colour it in,
Saying “Sorry, I’m not in Service.”

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/on-seeing-a-bus-with-a-sign-sorry-im-not-in-service/