Violence and hope: a controversy on the 63

NB Martin Amis author, Christopher Hitchens, journalist 

Two people sit on the bus, discussing Shakespeare
Another: “Your Uncle Vanya was superb”
Our driver, a classics scholar with film star looks
Speaks in Greek to his friend. He's never forgiven him
For those comments, in the London Review of Books

The sky's a gigantic, suppurating bruise
There's Peckham Rye common, where Blake saw his angels
Puddles, with tower blocks in them, slide by us
Queen's Road, where the palm trees of Peckham parade

Listlessly. But who is this getting on the bus?

It's only Hitchens and Amis – Starsky and Hutch!

Hitch's last book is on everybody's mind

The atheist tract set Lewisham alight –
God is Not Great: The Case Against Religion

Everyone has an opinion all right!

A stranger joins them. Looks like a varsity man

His Oxford scarf is an exclamation mark

He and Hitch are friends, they met at Balliol

Precocious union debates were their platforms –

Rowing on the Cherwell at dawn, the May ball

We have entered that liminal zone, the Old Kent Road

The least favoured spot on the Monopoly board

Every pub claims to be Henry Cooper's gym

You can still smell the Brylcreem and aftershave

“Splash it on all over”, they used to call him

Here, thin yellow men regret the smoking ban

Punch drunk, their fingers twitch for untipped Rothmans

Collecting beer glasses in their frosted-glass lairs

They are Charlie Chaplins, without his millions

Violence and hope flavour the atmosphere

We slither past Tesco's; to its rear the Shard

A slim, grey needle, pierces the sombre sky
“A point well made,” says Hitchens, of his new mate
“Martin?” The upper-deck debate's in full swing

What would Amis pere have thought? Martin hesitates

“I'm sorry I don't agree,” he announces

He will overcome this upstart; fuck him up

Like an unleashed Staff, he goes on the attack

“I see that you haven't read Christopher's book;

If you had done so, you would understand that ...”

As we pass through the Elephant, the boys

Go at it, hammer and tongs, giving it some

At Blackfriars, the brown river staggers by

Does God exist? At least they have entertained

The 63 bus is themed by their colloquy