The man on the bus - Jill Jones

He lets out a cat moan
in tune with something
in his head, or closer to his blood.
A kind of ecstasy? I don't know.
And he dances, swinging on the rail
Commuters ignore him.
It's hard to hear anyway
above the roar of beasts in traffic.
Oh—ooh, A-ma-azing Gra-ace,
mm I Wanna Ho-old Your Ha-and.
The girl he's next to
looks out the window.
He stares at her sideways,
willing her to notice or join in.
The Lo-ong and Win-ding Road 
On a different road we could all
be like this—swinging and singing
on the bus, howling at the beasts
out there, in here,
trying to leap out of our heads
instead of sifting them
through newsprint, lined progress
of our collected madness.
Perhaps we're too polite to cry
on the bus this early
in the rigid frenzy of peak hour.

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Jill Jones (born 1951) Australia