The Four Dogs of the Apocalypse
get onto the bus, checking our tickets.
The first would be a teacher, emperor
of his little realm, schooling compliance
methodically, always fair and just
in his punishment of infringements:
he would be but he didn't get the grades,
so he quietly does the paperwork
pertaining to ticket checking on a bus.
The second was a security guard
at a middling sized dotcom startup,
answering to no-one but the boss, with whom
he was on first name terms, treating others
each as an undetected malfeant,
agressively asserting authority
until one day the boss did a runner ...
The third, at weekends, is a referee
and his is to calm the fights the ex-guard
tries to start. True, he is a gauleiter,
but with professional charm he enforces
the petty rules, reasonably suppressing
all human indignation, the affront
at impolite officialdom - as said,
_the insolence of office_ - with a smile.
And the forth of this unholy quartet
is the junior manager, promise crammed,
a wealth of experience beneath his cap;
at fifty-six he has seen everything
and his judgement, thus grounded, is set in stone,
he speaks down to the lady  who sells the tickets,
and to the driver, who do the work.
Like a tiny nation state, the bus lurches
to a stop, and off I get.

![busa86f7.jpg](http://www.steemimg.com/images/2017/01/15/busa86f7.jpg)

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The poem and the photo are my own. Thank you for reading, @richardjuckes.