In the dim and distant past, i cycled around
Slow and fast, past sleepy houses, on small city blocks.' In the morning fresh when its not yet hot ' sometimes a daring
Cat shot in front, aloof and sleek, no play for me then on bots..I recall the rich sent of
Fresh cut lawn, before the day would swallow, this placid morn' i recall milk bottles sitting on front door stoops, as pidgeons scattering, as the hawk broke loose, out a of a blue yonder, with whistling
Wings, echoing the sound of my bike wheels, as i turn for home i hear the church
Bell ring.'
The water softener's down again!
It failed to cycle through the night.
Our country home provides a well
with cool, clear water that tastes right.
Well water's hard and not so nice
till it's cycled to turn soft so
full, rich suds to shower and bathe
will leave you fresh with a clean glow.
Not only that- washed clothes get stiff;
dishwasher glassware, cloudy too.
To get it fixed takes a few days!
Without our suds, we're sad and blue.
A simple thing- a no-suds wash
stops water cleaning as it should-
removes the "happy" from each day!
A simple thing- but understood!
Four long days passed, and service came
to say our water softener died!
And so, a new one took its place
“Hooray for soapy suds, we cried!
PREDICAMENTS
informal
&lyrical
figurative
self-indulgent
didactics
knowingly
re-cycled
prominent
confident
proportionate
reminders
dislocated
in
a
blurred
indelible
unconscious
of insights
Shoes shopping
I dislike wasting my time shopping for shoes
The man who wrote Wasteland, a famous poem
He is known for this; he did like boots too for walking
He did indeed, and many other things too
I, when I had a bike, cycled through the Wasteland
a domestic landscape growing beautifully wild
I don`t see it now, there is a distance between
me and the dream I had, the touch, the aroma of
Nature is also a memory of horse manure in
a field verdant as the sea around Greenland.
I need a wasteland, a place where I can lose myself
Without it, life is an endless, trivial repetition.
Tomorrow I will buy a pair of walking boots.
As the stars twinkled gaily in the sky,
they could only laugh -
They watched the moon through all its phases,
crescent, quarter, gibbous, full, and half.
But as she cycled through her lunar changes,
grieving for all love untrue,
the stars sadly noticed that
the moon was always blue.
So, they charmed a gentle nightingale,
"Please sing your pretty tune",
and "the stars beckoned her song
to reach the crescent moon."
So much noisy garbage going around:
empty words,
empty conversations,
empty excitement,
empty goals,
empty objections,
empty recommendations,
empty decorations without guts.
Noise for the sake of the Dirty Politics.
Recycled, sensationalizing, fake news.
Cycled storing of energy in a void -
In a trash bin of the abyss.
I saw you
In the tender birth of a summer’s day
Emerge,
Fragile to a new life,
New freedom,
Feast delights of nectar
On the brambled cliffs.
I saw your fluttered dance of courtship
In the gladed woods
Above the Lyn.
Those crowded flights
Of summer’s quiet agitation
Fade one by one
To loneliness.
I saw those wings
That floated in the easy lightness of an August heat
Falter,
Chill-damped
In a late September mist
Above the bouldered shore.
I saw you
Weary of life once precious,
Hesitate along the edge of the western bay,
Your wings dip to the water’s gentle swell.
You rested brief
As though to rise again,
Gave in to weakness frail,
Surrendered to the ancient sea’s embracing wave,
Pale essence of those cycled ways,
I saw you die.
On holiday in North Devon, watching a tortoiseshell butterfly at Bucks’ Mill as it fluttered along the gentle shore.
Jack sits in the wheelchair in the grass
a rebel nerd, he thinks of the time
when he cycled up Teton Pass
by a stream through walls of pine
Obsessed, this viewpoint vampire
his memory full of hill and vale
A landscape loon, an odd desire
But now his body is his jail
The harried nurse to her surprise
Distracted from a patient's cries
sees a vision in Jack's fogged eyes
lakes and forests and crimson skies
[chorus]
In each scene, views so grand
At six thousand feet, he biked along
Never quite reached the Promised Land
But the last verse is not the song
Kate sits in the same old age home
A relic from a bygone show
Her friends long dead, she's now alone
Her melody no longer on the radio
She was warm and could be all heart
Now a meteor in afterburn
She knows that bodies fall apart
Resigned or not, the wheel must turn.
[outro]
Jack and Kate were luckier than some
They were free, knew right from wrong
They lived a long life, and had their fun
The last verse is not the song.
People started running,
for buses, taxis, trains,
with umbrellas no defence,
against the wind and rain,
a drowned rat cycled past,
then disappeared down a lane,
when lightening flashed, I dashed,
hoping to dry out again.
I shot past the pub’s “welcome” sign,
“No Prams or Pushchairs Inside”,
then scrutinised the menu,
for something not micro’d or fried,
with my paper, pint, pasty, and peas,
I sat by the warm fireside,
waiting for the storm to pass,
and brighter weather outside.
classic-calls
be...
class-cycled
into...
jazz and blues
as...
easy listening
so...
a muse-hick's call
too...
a listener at-tension
will...
say-all the breeze-is
inside...
and don't reflect-shuns
stan sand
he, a poor artist
sketched portraits for a living
prophecy of love
Swedish girl appears
mesmerized him with blue eyes
why does heart beat fast?
"draw my face", she says
will he capture my feelings?
trembling paintbrush speaks
"we're destined to meet
you're my foreign fantasy,
will you marry me?"
shy smile answers him
unfazed by this proposal
lovers tie the knot
she has to go back
he promises to join her
can she trust his word?
year and a half gone
true love kept them together
in touch through letters
he saved some money
how long could he stay away?
cycled to Sweden
six thousand miles crossed
from India to his wife
a journey of love...
...passion knows no boundaries...
The Instrumentalists
Percussion: Tectonic plate movement, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions
Strings: Solar wind and flares, meteor hits, and galaxy intrusion
Reeds: Polarity arrangement, methane control under the oceans
Brass: Layered by temperature: air’n water in motion
The Ensemble
Instruments tuned for planet change
Compose symphonies in ethereal range:
Mystic music for geologic meaning -
Melody for cosmic listening.
Ages ordered in time pleasing Trinity -
On earth in the universe out to eternity.
Ice ages in millenniums, cycled through millions:
Our years but moments: compare the planet in billions.
Human lifespan is varied, in century duration,
So we might know our limitations.
Natural science is not political science:
Human hope is in God reliance.
She said she loved my mind;
for an instant I became 31 and handsome,
then the crystal disco ball cycled once more,
it flashed before me as a picture of Dorian Gray,
his face melting.
The cut diamond has far less facets than a mind,
if you love a mind you must accept
its closeted secrets, its dark bottomless pits,
then forgive the light for being so bright
a conjuring incandescence
that makes the mind’s appearance featureless.
Where the mind wanders the brain must stubble after
stupidly blinking its cyclopean eye.
This love that she has for the mind - she must be a poet,
for the mind is not a Kingdom built in any known landscape.
One mind with all its infinite guises
jumps instantly into any form, anybody.
The end of the mind is its beginning,
for in that measureless moment
the mind reveals one last face,
one just born, a nativity burning bright,
then like a birds outstretched wings
it flies to the love it always sought.
An hour before dawn,
the market people arrive
then settle like nestling birds
beside the Ping river.
Girls squat over large straw hats,
hats brimful of dried chilies
or small freshwater fish.
They lay down bamboo mats
laden with okra, aubergines, mangosteens
and rambutan.
They are not from Chiang Mai
but are a Thai hill peoples,
villagers that have cycled through the night
to bring their produce here.
Carefully they wrap your choices
in newspaper bundles tied
with red raffia.
They offer this livelihood to us
with modest smiles.
A daily subsistence parceled with a grace
that can be felt as a currency, a simple act
of transference.
A few coins are exchanged.
The barter and haggle
of a busy city market is absent here
just the affable contact
of a hand to hand correspondence.
A mutual recognition
of the rivers that join us
and the oceans between.
The infancy of TV in Norway
He came home early to see the news
on TV. After the news weather forecast
Then a bit of entertainment
a lady played the guitar and sang badly
end of TV for that day.
He cycled down to the nearest pub
they closed at eleven, the town only had 3
Uphill was more difficult.
On Sunday. the Tv was more lively
mass, sport and the Flint Stones.
Monday evening, film night, often
a dreary Polish film. Good night!!!
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