Jump on this week’s poetry bus for your very own spiritual journey . . . .

Yesterday upon the stair I met
a man who wasn’t there.
He wasn’t there again today.
I wish to God he’d go away.

Okay.
Pull up a chair. It’s dark outside. I’ve just thrown another log on the fire (it may not be very seasonal, but stay with me on this, okay?). There’s a smell of wood-smoke. Someone takes off their shoes to warm their feet.
We’re drinking tea – nothing fancy, just Barry’s Gold Blend. Someone passes round the biscuits (Mcvities digestives). It’s the sort of night where being indoors in front of a fire is the best place in the world to be.
For a moment all that can be heard is the sound of satisfied munching. Then someone says, ‘has anyone got a story?’ And someone mumbles something about being too busy eating biscuits to tell stories. And then someone else clears their throat and says, well . . . My father used to tell a story when we were small. . …

He worked late nights as a sub-editor, see? And anyway, one night, after missing the last bus out of town, he got a taxi.
About ten miles out of town on a steep tree-covered hill, the taxi-driver told him a story.
He’d been travelling back towards the city after a late fare and he was struggling to stay awake when something loomed up on the road just inches ahead of him. It was a man, leading a donkey. To his horror, before he could fully register what was happening, the taxi-driver had driven over the exact spot where the man and donkey stood. But when he got out of the car there was nothing there . . .

The room shifts and spins and everything feels a little funny and someone says ‘I wish I hadn’t eaten those digestives’ and then suddenly we’re not sitting in a room anymore. Instead we’re sitting on a bus, and in the driver’s seat is a figure cloaked in white.

Over the tannoy a deep, musical voice says: ‘This week’s poetry bus will bring you back to a time when you believed that reality could bend and shift,
I don’t want stories about death, the voice continues.
I don’t want stories about horrible ghoosties and scary creatures.
I want proof, the voice rumbles. I want proof of higher life. I want uplifting stories of helpful spirits. I want stories of joyful moments of synchronicity that couldn’t have happened without the intervention of some higher power.
I want joy, I want tears, I want laughter, I want truth. I want moments or stories where the real world grazed the spirit one.
At the very least, I want a poem.

(and will whoever has removed their shoes please put them on again. A bus is a small, confined space. Show some appreciation for your fellow passengers, please.)

Ps: Have a look at this if you're still feeling a bit short on inspiration: (Yay - after many, many tries it actually works. Thanks Argent!)