Cyclists outrunning the approaching cyclone
Tour de France quickly captures everyone’s attention
Extra incentive to pedal faster
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
In the Holland garden I
Sat and vaguely thought about
If there is a timeless time
Spreading in the air around
Then it rained, so back I went
To my tiny hotel room
Laid across the bed and slept
Till the evening shiny gloom
Went downstairs to the bar
Got a drink and sat outside
Buses, cyclists and the cars
Rushed the wet road gliding by
Then I thought about you
And the garden jobs you did
Then the sky turned darker blue
Came the time to shut the lid.
In buses, on bikes, as passengers in Ubers
Faces blur and deeds collide.
Sprint down streets, stuck behind the slow,
always in passing I see stories unfold.
Quick check behind in case of cars,
None in sight but there's a beep.
Cyclists are invisible to pedestrians with places to be.
Taxi beeps at taxi and beeped at hops out
To harass the beeper with a wagging finger.
Apology, apology, I demand apology!
Delivery driver on a monster truck e-bike;
Near miss with a clueless tourist.
It's all too much for one man to keep.
I try to write them as they happen
but seconds pass and the moment is gone.
Passing, always passing, these moments with people
that we'll never know
but for a second,
laid bare on their face is themselves
whole and complete.
Each day has a second to be remembered.
Gather them, pick them, stuff them in your pockets.
Each day has a second for us all.
When you’re driving please please be aware
of those walking or with a pushchair.
Watch for elderly who may be slow
and for cyclists not wearing day glo.
Stick to speed limits and never race
and keep a wide smile on your face!
School bus drivers stay aware with eyes peeled
For cyclists who are out there peddling wheels
Watch out for those who travel on foot too
Students who saunter along as they do
The elderly, blind and those unhearing
Hold safe those on the bus you are steering.
A schoolfriend kick-around
Mr Whippy lurking at the gate
Benched smoking friends with blue bagged camouflaged alcohol
A new family stroll to encourage baby's sleep
New cyclists concentrating
Old cyclists using no hands
A spread out picnic
Frowns from the coated council worker
A dying water feature
Bushes for lurking and hiding
The not as good side
Dog walkers reflecting and thinking.
The clock on the wall
Just past boring.
Today’s Big decision is crumpets
And Charlie Stayt on the BBC still boring.
Today’s news is Covid 19.
The homes been put under the hammer
and martins told me to do my homework.
and I've been on a bargain hunt.
I turn the radio on its smooth fm
It’s a constant link of cheesy tunes
and yes I am living on a prayer.
oh I could so easily murder someone
best not as its father brown now.
then more Covid 19 on the news.
out for a walk with the lyra clad masses
and there’s more cyclists than Beijing.
Teas a thing with the shortest expire date.
And im now watching pointless which seems so apt.
then of to help Indiana find a crystal skull
then more news about Covid 19.
Bed
The End
Episode 2 tomorrow in fact no just read it again.
When I first visited Saigon
Learning the Saigon Shuffle
Was difficult
And now 24 years later
It all seems to be coming back
There is an art to crossing the street
Dodging the motor cyclists, the taxis, the private cars
The bikes and other pedestrians and the buses
The art consists of letting the big guys go first
Then walk between the motorcycles and cyclists
Trusting that they will get out of your way
And they being masters of the Saigon shuffle
Always find a way
In my two visits I was struck
By how it all flows together
Without a central authority
And with almost no planning
Lights or cops
Somehow it just is
And somehow it works
And it is still a mystery to me
24 years after first
Encountering the Saigon shuffle
park bench under
candy color foliage ~
come sunday cyclists
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
the driver
barking at cyclists
his dog confused
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
The bicycle Tour of Britain
By Stanley Russell Harris
The new mad author
& A Poetry Soup honourably mentioned poet
The tour of Britain’s is coming here.
To Suffolk County, do you hear?
To see those riders is such a sight.
As they flash pass on their bikes, alright.
The switch of tyres on the road!
As those bikes pass with their load,
of humans crouched upon their bikes.
Head held down. What are they like?
Sweaty bodies smell as they pass by.
Backside’s stuck up in the Suffolk sky.
I wonder if potholes will go,
on the route, those bikes do flow.
If not I hope I’m not nearby.
When someone off their bike does fly!
As if they do, it won’t be fair.
As will pollute our Suffolk’s fresh country air!
I do believe it is Friday September 8th 2017 we will be graced by the tour of Britain cyclists. The route being from Newmarket to Aldeburgh.
.
&
as for
cyclists
...............
how are we
meant to understand
all your fancy hand signals
................................
plus, we can see
your b*lls
.
A flight of birds
Flaunt their enormous wings
Spying the light blue skies,
Of a city protected by trees
Whose sheer leaves
Dance with the January breeze
That hovers over
A people of different origins
A chrysalis unborn,
Wrapped tightly with love
Soon to flourish into a butterfly
This city is,
Of men and women
That toil in light and darkness
In strife for success
Thousand cyclists dot the downtown alley
Where potholes wait still,
Like crocs in a shallow river,
Preying a stray leg,
Or a taxi from a valley of hundreds
That,
From atop their harbor
Evokes in me
The feel of a king facing his people
Twilight sluggishly descends
Upon a tired city,
Ushering in the night lights
That glow of cedar upon the girls of the night,
The streets are quiet yet lively,
With music, liquor stores,
and casinos,
Stray dogs and vagabonds Populate the night,
Clearing the streets of the day's trash
I could still wake,
Oblivious of the morning sun,
Dazed from last night
And still know I'm in this lovely city
That bares untold stories
Of men that fostered it's blossom.
Isaac.O
How the morn wakens with life,
to tether a sleepy soul
with simple delights;
The manna lights upon the land,
the swell of the sun ballooning
like some prim-adonna,
A starling to lead teasing to treetops
(a little black speck)
(star-of-Bethlehem-met)
swaying in soft wind....
Tickling the trees with its breeze
and tender tune;
so soon hushed,
the houses blush below ----
to parks the children go,
cyclists for cars....
The far traffic din slim with Sunday;
this Easter with the peace of Christ,
his everlasting smile,
so lovely upon the land
(A certain Sunday morn)
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