Lost Poems

At the bus stop

Got a seat by the window

Looking out of the dusty and stained glass

I tried to bring back all the poems I lost

In the trenches

In the market stalls

In the parks

And the homeless shelters.

.

No amount of contemplation

Would bring me even a single line

Of these lost verses that crossed my mind

But were never written down

.

How many poems lie unconscious in the trenches

or hide in fear under the market stalls

Or sleep in the park benches

How many poems shiver homeless in the shelters

That I will never retrieve.

.

Perhaps one of them

would have been the best I ever wrote

and yet still must now remain lost

The bus takes off