Mean Mile

As we butt into the countryside,
our snub-nosed bus sounds more annoyed;
it grinds through swamps and ruts,
between dykes and crippled hedges,
down miles of wet tarmac,
from one telegraph pole to another,
from one five bar gate to another,
from one muddy bunkered cottage to another,
criss-crossing land dank and paralysed
below an oatmeal sky.
There seem hudreds of miles,
thousands, but it's the same mean mile
circling, taking us back where we didn't want
to come from, where we didn't want to leave.