Gorilla Drives the Zoo Bus

Gorilla drives the same zoo bus
all day, every day;
same starting time, same finishing time,
same route, same stops,
different passengers,
but every passenger the same:
faceless.
Gorilla doesn’t want to know their names.

“Please tender the exact fare!”
Not a penny less, not a penny more,
and he polices every penny.
Bus conductor and master
of every passenger’s destiny,
he opens and shuts the door,
letting passengers on and off the bus,
but only at official stops.

Every passenger has a ticket,
and he punches every ticket
with a neat, round hole.

He never makes mistakes.
He grinds, like God’s own mills,
exceedingly small.

He has spent all his life in uniform.
He has a belt and braces to hold his trousers up.
He’s always prepared for the worst.  

Ten, fifteen, twenty years:
an anonymous wife;
anonymous little babies;
at shift’s end, a pension,
and another bus.

St. Peter’s at the wheel.
He doesn’t want to know
where gorilla wants to go:
he wants to know where he’s been.

Commentary:

Moo didn’t have a painting of a gorilla driving a bus, so he offered me a painting of the passengers instead. Look carefully – you might even find a portrait of me or you in there. Who knows where Moo goes and who he sees? I certainly don’t. Remember Picasso – he used to run downstairs, out into the street, see a face he liked, and run back upstairs and paint it from memory. I wonder if Moo does the same thing. I’d ask him, but if he doesn’t want to answer the question, he just grunts. And I can imagine him grunting at that one.

Anyway, we all know and recognize the gorillas when we meet them. They are totally unimportant, have a miniscule job to do, but do it with absolute authority and the utmost perfection. Like Gorilla – “Not a penny less, not a penny more, and he polices every penny.” – “he opens and shuts the door, letting passengers on and off the bus, but only at official stops.” – “he punches every ticket with a neat, round hole.” – and probably in the exact same spot of every ticket! – “He never makes mistakes.” – and if he does, it’s the passenger who suffers, because ‘Get on, get off, who ever you may be, I am the lord of the bus,’ says he.

What will happen to us at the end of our shift? I really don’t know. And I don’t think anyone else does, either. Will St. Peter be there to greet us? (I don’t know.) Has the Zoo bus replaced the ferry over the River Styx? (I don’t know.) What will we be asked when we get there? (I don’t know.) How will we answer? (I don’t know.) Is there a little book in which all our deeds, good and bad, are written down? (I don’t know.) Are we to be divided into sheep and goats? (I don’t know.) What will poor monkey do when he is turned into a sheep or a goat? (I don’t know.)

So many questions, deep questions, packed into one small poem. Most of those questions unanswerable. But that’s one of the joys of poetry – to open a poem is to open a tin of calamares – there’s always another something or other left in the corner. Look, over there, bottom left, right at the bottom of the can, I spy with my little eye another question. ‘What is that question?’ you ask. Sorry, mate, I’m afraid I don’t know.