A bicycle is freedom
It's not just wheels and gears
It's more than bottom brackets
It's more than front and rear
It's freewheeling down steep hills
No pedals, feet up high
It's becoming young all over again
With hedges zooming by
It's finding winding tracks and lanes
It's getting muddy, wet
It's getting caught out in the rain
A love you dont forget
misjudging potholes in the road
And landing on the side
It's grazing knees and bruises
An exhilarating ride
It's falling in the Bracken
It's walking flat tyres home
It's fresh air and a peace
It's together or alone
Im back to being 12 yrs old
Exploring places yet unseen
It's going out for hours
To where I have not been
So look beyond the handlebars
The sprockets and the chains
This is perfect freedom
Will make you smile again
So free the bike now from the shed
Clean rust from off the frame
Set it free from cobwebs
You'll never be the same
As a citizen poet without pretension,
I offer a true tale of my invention.
A solid everyman in my community,
with a reputation of immunity,
I was happy and content.
I shared my thoughtful insights,
and wrote about the northern lights.
My words made grown men cry.
I think about it and breathe a sigh -
I was something else!
But, one morning, I woke up
and drank acidic coffee from my cup,
which my wife served black as pitch.
Inside I felt a strange, hot itch.
Could it be indigestion?
No ordinary heart inside my chest,
was it the Devil who had me possessed?
Burning inside, I fretfully undressed,
as, to despair, I acquiesced,
and went back to bed.
But, the feeling persistently welled,
until, at last, I was oddly compelled,
and in terror, I was gripped,
so my own skin, I violently ripped,
exposing my insides.
There, I saw sprockets and springs,
gears, knobs and other things,
and screamed an existential cry,
knowing I could neither live, nor die,
for all I was, was just AI.
The space race, now racing with rockets
Though cheapest, wore the deepest pockets
I hope that they're hiring
Soon after a firing
Need a job at Spacely Space Sprockets
We are the body heat
of an endangered species,
the shattered hammer and forge
of an archaic workshop.
Gone are the rhymes and chimes,
gone all reason to be,
gone the prophet, saint or devil,
now we drive
to the far side of a town,
one we have never visited,
just to scratch upon a nameless wall.
Words confound us,
spellbound we tinker
with the Daedalian keys,
sprockets and gears
of an incalculable machine,
not seeking answers,
nor questioning why,
but only how.
Once upon a time ago,
An act of marriage was made so.
Film and sound both intertwined
And made a movie when combined.
At first, colour was not in sight...
Merely greys of black-and-white.
Ceremonies made in silence
Without gratuitous sex or violence.
As time went on, movies evolved
With many contributors involved.
The inclusion of colour and soundtracks
Enhanced what some pictures would lack.
Cameras of stock and sprockets
Would eventually fit into pockets.
Anyone can perform marriage
These days with the correct carriage.
These words are a mere summation
Of imagination and inspiration
That cinema has given me...
Thank you for all I hear and see.
The clockwork
the most complex
Older sprockets, need
life cycle oils
Awareness
the vitality is impaired
- ready to do whatever it takes
follow the advice of the doctor
positively for health
Johnny jonquil jerry justified jilly’s jeu jeu bee
Dilly dally Doolittle dodged debonair simon legree’s degree
Freakish freddy frogmouth forever frolicked footloose and free
Michigan mike’s handy hardy heart hovers over a wild monkey
Photogentic photons prance prettily in posey’s poignant plea
Sparkling sprinkling sprockets on a special soupy spree
Verigated visiting venomous vines vying for an upside down vee,
Neopolitan negativity knicking nora, knocking knibber’s knee
Tricept’s trepidation tripping towards tutu bubu trees
Hampton’s heavy hyenas heading home with loud heehees
Don’t just raise your glass, stand up to cheers
Until each and every one gets audibly clinked
Repeating Ike-ism’s stretching memories years
Keeps the good ones up front and spirits linked
Not so subtly cheat (just a little) in a crokinole game
Enough to get caught to see who’s watching most
Laugh when he’s busted, “Who me?” He’d exclaim
Get the cookie anyway and make a little toast
But don’t just raise your glass, stand up to cheers
Around the table meeting each glass individually
Sing old songs loud enough so everyone hears
Then head to the garage to smoke an O.P.
Overpaying the grandkids to repaint the fence
Who wasted the paint on each other running amok
A sense of good humour even at an expense
So off for more, piled into the big orange truck
Fixing cars for the cost of parts and a chat
For family and friends over sprockets and gears
Here’s to the happy man with Ike on his hat
So don’t just raise your glass, stand up to cheers!
He records the works of his life, the ephemera
he once scrawled onto the tissue thin,
thinking them indelible blueprints.
Most were fables told to a dying legend,
Pastimes, that were chariot wheels
for his little red wagon.
He is an inventor of sorts, an engineer
of impossibilities.
He accumulates metallurgical oddments
for mechanical artifacts
that have no purpose or point;
contrivances with strange gears.
attachments that bolt on to
only missing parts.
They are pieces of an assemblage
made to represent an unknowable idea.
He structures these devises
on the leeched rims of endless visions.
His minds darkened workshops
flicker with the light of kerosene lamps.
He needs shadows and the gleam of
yet undreamed dreams,
he needs gaslight eyes
while shaping the formless.
Nuts, bolts, levers, and steam driven
small brass sprockets
for the calibration of improbable elements
are his articles of faith.
A life he once constructed
falls apart little by little.
He now searches for stronger,
less breakable mechanisms
to put together, no matter that they
serve no purpose, other than
to girder and frame
featherweight straws in the wind.
For the unusually bulging pockets,
Eyes pop out of their sockets:
You’d think their owners had been handed lockets
Or once again America remembered rockets!
A Mechanic whose wife floats a versatile saloon
Funnily welcoming customers with balloon;
Perhaps, the contents of his pockets
Are to end up in a handful sprockets
Or in his wife’s interest hats feathery
And bags or shoes leathery …
But can he have made all the money
Or a part of it the sweat of his Honey;
Fewer cars now willing to break down
For a paid servicing by Mechanic Brown.
O' woe, begone betwixt machine,
Breathe clowns galore this Halloween,
Lay tricks played game, device for fools,
Be sprockets, chains, and things learn I,
What need be fixed, of me, they vie,
Deny me naught borne bag of tools.
2019 October 21
Perhaps one day the world can change
remove this grain from the gears
those sprockets seeking to rotate
have no need to compensate
an irritation that few admit
except to step around the grit
damned by silence without regard
for the feelings of the gnat
allowing gods to have their way
with full knowledge of good and bad
the highest wisdom with least pain
divinity spawned is then made plain
at last all others may depart
the annoyance finally purged
from the sight of those who rule
nature blessed with the void.
The Clockmaker
The old clockmaker sat at his bench
In the shop where he'd lived all his years
With a monocle lens on his eye
And his desk filled with sprockets and gears.
Everything had its place in a drawer.
Every drawer labeled proper and neat.
Only sound to be heard was the clocks
As they ticked out a monotone beat.
Of the hundreds of clocks there for sale
Each with spaces on walls or on shelves
Not a one of them told the wrong time
And they all said one minute till twelve
The dark moment he'd feared had arrived
And the clockmaker's face gave a wince
As each clock confirmed midnight had come
And that now Daylight Savings begins
8.17.18
Contest: A Rattling Rhyme
I feel the clock
as it begins to unwind
Tick tock, tick tock
another second behind
Springs and sprockets
intricately interconnected
Tick talk, tick t a l k
My slow down unexpected
Pendulum swinging
from side to side
Ticktock,ticktock
Not swinging nearly as wide
The Cuckoo is coming
It will stick out it’s head
Tick tock, tick talk
I can’t remember what I said
Ding dong, ding dong
The chimes are ringing
Tick tock, tock tock
What will time be bringing?
The hands keep moving
around the round face
Tick tock, tick tock
Connecting me to this place!
I search for the key
can this clock be rewound?
Tick tick, talk stick
It’s nowhere to be found......
Rackets, rockets and sprockets of lies in their sties fly fast
Treasures and pleasures of truth offer orphans wisdom to last
Choose to cruise in lies and perish
Cruise to groove in truth and prune proof to furnish.
Spies and sties of lies speed up blights, flights and sites of harm
Growth of truth enjoin teenagers to join joints where they stay calm
Dive in rivers of lies and land into Airport Perdition
Drive droves of truth and aggrandize erudition.
Weirs and tiers of lies blind blokes whom they hypnotize
Vats of verity and truth redeem recipients on planets where they pander to their preferred prize
Fleas and freckles of lies flee when exposure lurks and irks in the background
Youth and truth unite to grow together in wisdom in every sound round.
Limitations of lies and imitations of truth run but can’t hide
Tidbits meet and fit wits to boost blokes’ pride in a right ride
Allies and lie spies rally but can’t parry functions of sanctions
Tallies and rallies of truth trek troops to unalloyed unctions.
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