Tug Dumbly # 68 - Fake Billy Collins Poem

Fake Billy Collins Poem      

This gentle acoustic bus goes electric

when she gets on and sits directly

in front of me, and I must rest

in my lap the book I’m reading

and take in her thick Spanish mane,

shinily fountaining up in a proud

black pony tail, spilling back down

over her caramel neck and shoulders

and swishing that lucky seat bar.

… Now, I know what you’re thinking.

Too many adjectives. But don’t fret,

this is not a poem about poetry.

Nor is this going to get weird or

pervy in any way. The only thing

arrested was my attention

and the only charge you could lay

against me would be grievous

dereliction of Pablo Neruda,

whose greatest hits I’d been reading

before my mind got waylaid.

But no way is anything creepy

going to happen, and in any case

I promise to give a trigger

warning if at any stage this poem

looks like straying into tasteless  

terrain. But it won’t. I have too much

respect for the artistry of

Pablo Neruda, and the earthy

magic and erotic pungency  

of his poetry, as well as for the

lovely looking Latino lady

sitting right in front of me,  

to transgress any boundary

of good taste, or socio-sexual 
propriety in any way …   

All I’m saying is my attention

was got when she boarded, with

her pregnant belly swelled to a ripe

Valencia under its orange top,  

and her skin hummed this expectant

blush, a million-tongued blood glow,

and there’s this flash of black jasper eyes,

dark browed and lashed, set in flesh

so sweetly tented to jaw and cheek.

And then she is seated, two feet

in front of my face, and I’m

ambuscaded by that lustrous,

prancing pony tail, which gets my

imagination galloping

on a ride beside this bus …

Plus there’s the way she rubs her neck

and shoulders, and digs her fingers

under her bra strap, through that

orange top, like it's eating too sharp

in the one spot and she just wants

to peel the damn thing off …

And I find I’m just about dying

to lean forward, get my nose in close

to her neck, and inhale deep that

warm horse hair and caramel skin.

And maybe I do lean in, just a bit,  

before I catch myself and think

how this might look to the other

people on the bus, me sitting there

sniffing the back of this lady’s

head like a dinner. So I return to

reading Pablo Neruda, and his  

fifty greatest hit poems, which I

found in the library. And Pablo’s  

everything you’d expect a South

American Literary Giant to be -

political, magical and dirty,  

and pretty soon I’m uttering bits

of the saucy old Chilean out loud,

close behind her, in Spanish -

Plena mujer, manzana carnal,

luna caliente - because this book

has the poems in both English

and Spanish, and even though

I don’t speak Spanish, and my 
pronunciation might be garish,  

more gauche than gaucho -

beso a beso recorro

tu pequeno infinito -

Pablo’s words soon weave their magic

and she levers her swollenness  

around in her seat and stares at me

from a well of darkest wonder. 

She says ‘Neruda? He's okay

in small doses. Though he can get

a bit cloying, like a heavy perfume.

I usually go for something with

a bit more lightness and fizz, like

Billy Collins. Know what I mean?’

The bus stops, she heads for the door,

but first turns and says, ‘by the way,

were sniffing me before?  
That was a little bit weird ...
you know, a bit creepy sorta?'

She gets off, and I sit and ponder

the power of poetry, and her Aussie
accent, which couldn't have been broader.