tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34235474390079715942024-03-13T05:28:54.252-07:00velotryA Collection of the Poetry and Art of CyclingVelomannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11735152500677012292noreply@blogger.comBlogger46125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423547439007971594.post-17425329612043334172023-10-29T11:33:00.000-07:002023-10-29T11:33:13.341-07:00To Mars from Arizona<h3 style="text-align: left;"> by Alberto Rios</h3><p><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;">Saturday mornings were science fiction—<br />That is, on that day anything was possible.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;">We didn’t have to go to the movies for that,<br />Though when we did, we were introduced to ourselves</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;">More than anything. Ourselves in rockets,<br />Ourselves taking chances, ourselves speaking to the universe.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;">Outside of the movies, we were still in them—<br />Our bikes were our rockets, our submarines, our jets.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;">But mostly, and first, our bikes were our horses <br />In this childhood West, a loyal, red Western Flyer</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;">Taking me everywhere, up and down, fast and slow.<br />Only later did I understand it was my own legs</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;">That did it all. My own legs and my arms to steer,<br />My own small, mighty lungs to shout—</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;">A shout that would later become a song.<br />When they weren’t horses, when my legs were tired,</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;">When the shouts calmed down into just talking,<br />We bike-riders would sit, and find in that talking </p><p style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;">The gold we had been looking for, though we didn’t know it.<br />The gold was made of plans for Saturdays still to come—</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;">We each had different ideas, but we all had them,<br />Speaking them confidently as if we were lions,</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;">Deep-voiced and sure even in that quietude.<br />What would happen next was far away,</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;">But even as we rested, something in us knew<br />We would catch the future no matter how fast it ran.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;">“This is a simple testament to our childhood and adult imaginations both, looking at how time allows us to see the same thing in more than one way. I grew up on the border, literally, but it was never one thing. This poem helps me to understand that the border wasn’t simply about geography, but about the border between today and tomorrow; between what we were doing and what we were going to be doing; the certainty of that hopeful and creative and powerful sensibility—‘I’ was in harmony with the bravado of ‘I am.’”<br /><em>—Alberto Ríos</em></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN9rGYbczQ_GTGRlZ7uiZx_P6pjPlz5UeU7St2buBtkAdSUKBzN5ygVG6zq6RJdoC_h7I8HQXrn-TaHKMmskwLS4_moaJVX-Cm2H9n19xjDvOuqbUkgsK9X3q6SSq5NvqBo3XntIpfhAXRb3LTzBMnZ9ySnSO7T0N4mcKCO6aLVFPT9cF6zn67InP6Rehr/s428/unnamed.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="428" data-original-width="286" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN9rGYbczQ_GTGRlZ7uiZx_P6pjPlz5UeU7St2buBtkAdSUKBzN5ygVG6zq6RJdoC_h7I8HQXrn-TaHKMmskwLS4_moaJVX-Cm2H9n19xjDvOuqbUkgsK9X3q6SSq5NvqBo3XntIpfhAXRb3LTzBMnZ9ySnSO7T0N4mcKCO6aLVFPT9cF6zn67InP6Rehr/w199-h320/unnamed.png" width="199" /></a></div><br /><p style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></p>Velomannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11735152500677012292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423547439007971594.post-75441276062336277632023-10-27T20:40:00.000-07:002023-10-27T20:40:31.789-07:00from Freud Cycle--Untitled (Freud's Desk & Chair, Study Room 1938<h3 style="text-align: left;"> by Andres Cerpa</h3><p><br /></p><p>At breakfast I feed him my dreams as I arrange</p><p>his pills on the table. He is best in the morning,</p><p>when his wings lift from the labyrinth,</p><p>when he shaves, has an espresso.</p><p><i>Father, I dreamt last night that I was riding</i></p><p><i>a bicycle down a road in the country,</i></p><p><i>stones in my pockets to toss at the stray dogs.</i></p><p><i>I was afraid. The road continued into a fallen</i></p><p><i>green as the negligent moon took over the sky.</i></p><p><i>I could hear the dogs off in the distance</i></p><p><i>as I pedaled towards a clearing where one deer</i></p><p><i>stood; its proud antlers swayed in the silver </i></p><p><i>& I was silent. Silent as I've ever been. Calm.</i></p><p><i>Then you. You sprinted from the tree line:</i></p><p><i>openmouthed, unshaven, & took</i></p><p><i>the deer by its hind legs to drink your fill.</i></p><p><i>I wanted to run. I did. but ran toward you.</i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFUr0ZjbfQeHBFibRQhyphenhyphenf1R4MVfUiD9st-XH4lEl8RcHTI-0o2B74rXDB_bM1qJ-DNwNCmppKUmCxYxMITJF9MD4up_dMAsH96GijbkrZde2rFvXX-b85HSDbdTqz8dJz6KBJi8c_RhOe9mzJrUbmM1rkBLP59-TiLk5S9n3pO_dERwqm42pH-E9FcBfRe/s1350/Bicycle_cover_AJB-FInal-frontcoveronly%20(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1038" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFUr0ZjbfQeHBFibRQhyphenhyphenf1R4MVfUiD9st-XH4lEl8RcHTI-0o2B74rXDB_bM1qJ-DNwNCmppKUmCxYxMITJF9MD4up_dMAsH96GijbkrZde2rFvXX-b85HSDbdTqz8dJz6KBJi8c_RhOe9mzJrUbmM1rkBLP59-TiLk5S9n3pO_dERwqm42pH-E9FcBfRe/s320/Bicycle_cover_AJB-FInal-frontcoveronly%20(1).jpg" width="246" /></a></div><br /><i><br /></i><p></p>Velomannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11735152500677012292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423547439007971594.post-13314833925932444422023-10-26T20:28:00.000-07:002023-10-26T20:28:00.313-07:00Amsterdam<p> </p><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; min-width: 100%; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td style="margin: 0px; padding-top: 9px;" valign="top"><table align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="m_-1881340353726063124mcnTextContentContainer" style="border-collapse: collapse; max-width: 100%; min-width: 100%; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td class="m_-1881340353726063124mcnTextContent" style="color: #484848; font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 18px 9px; word-break: break-word;" valign="top"><h1 style="color: #6b6a6a; font-size: 40px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; line-height: 40px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></h1></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; min-width: 100%; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td style="margin: 0px; padding-top: 9px;" valign="top"><table align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="m_-1881340353726063124mcnTextContentContainer" style="border-collapse: collapse; max-width: 100%; min-width: 100%; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td class="m_-1881340353726063124mcnTextContent" style="font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 18px 9px; word-break: break-word;" valign="top">by <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://poets.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3De329a0cb6f08842f08a05d822%26id%3D727a73da4b%26e%3Dab8f4a16a2&source=gmail&ust=1698463262799000&usg=AOvVaw3JkPrf9t9G3khYoUapRU43" href="https://poets.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e329a0cb6f08842f08a05d822&id=727a73da4b&e=ab8f4a16a2" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong>Safia Elhillo</strong></a></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; min-width: 100%; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td style="margin: 0px; padding-top: 9px;" valign="top"><table align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="m_-1881340353726063124mcnTextContentContainer" style="border-collapse: collapse; max-width: 100%; min-width: 100%; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td class="m_-1881340353726063124mcnTextContent" style="font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 18px 9px; word-break: break-word;" valign="top"><blockquote style="font-size: 16px;"><sup><em>after <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://poets.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3De329a0cb6f08842f08a05d822%26id%3Dc25962d223%26e%3Dab8f4a16a2&source=gmail&ust=1698463262799000&usg=AOvVaw0hIEvF6laVZQI_gmO-FsPt" href="https://poets.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e329a0cb6f08842f08a05d822&id=c25962d223&e=ab8f4a16a2" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Jenny Xie</a></em></sup></blockquote><p style="color: #484848; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;">Concentric ripple of the canals, little apartment <br />at the center point. All June I’ve been in Amsterdam, <br />vowels softening to liquid in my mouth. Long walks <br />over the cobblestones in the warmest part <br />of the afternoon, narrow houses along the water arranged <br />like crooked teeth. My steps lead me over a ballet <br />of bridges, precarious choreography of bicycles <br />and other bodies, the rare car vulgar and roaring <br />along the too-small street. I count the faces around <br />that could be my faces, features and shades <br />from a much older world than this. City I may never <br />see again, and still my old need to belong. To daughter<br />the possibly Sudanese man at the Chipsy King, <br />his kind assurance that the dish contains no pork. <br />My nails soften and split in the cool dry air. An ashen <br />gray patch on my calf and I am ashamed for hours after, <br />wetting a finger with saliva to correct it.</p><p style="color: #484848; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="color: #484848; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;">from Poem-A-Day, May 8, 2023:</p><div style="color: #484848; line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white;">“I wrote this poem during a month-long residency in Amsterdam during which I attempted a 30/30 (thirty poems in thirty days) with my friend </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://poets.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3De329a0cb6f08842f08a05d822%26id%3D0009344732%26e%3Dab8f4a16a2&source=gmail&ust=1698463262799000&usg=AOvVaw27fO5YuR4H-WgiTzG7lQwY" href="https://poets.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e329a0cb6f08842f08a05d822&id=0009344732&e=ab8f4a16a2" style="background-color: white; color: #00add8; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Hala Alyan</a><span style="background-color: white;">. It’s written after </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://poets.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3De329a0cb6f08842f08a05d822%26id%3D2dcf69f04e%26e%3Dab8f4a16a2&source=gmail&ust=1698463262799000&usg=AOvVaw3Bigsc-wfqn8pTd6p0oC92" href="https://poets.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e329a0cb6f08842f08a05d822&id=2dcf69f04e&e=ab8f4a16a2" style="background-color: white; color: #00add8; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Jenny Xie</a><span style="background-color: white;">’s poem ‘Corfu,’ which is one of my all-time favorite travel poems. So much of my writing practice during that month involved going on long walks and describing to myself what I was noticing, what I was feeling, retraining my poet’s eye to the present day after a long obsession with history, with all my life’s great ruptures. In this poem, the worst thing that happens is that I was, briefly, ashy. And that was as deserving of poetry as anything else that’s happened.”<br /></span><span style="background-color: white;">—</span><em style="background-color: white;">Safia Elhillo</em></div><div style="color: #484848; line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;"><em style="background-color: white;"><br /></em></div><div style="color: #484848; line-height: 24px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrZZHXenysyMszSNxTgeWJZk1byXmEoyQHigeQ6ck9Bsc9CIhMX9CX-bmilo9KOWpzuL0nSpqmiGTOSeDz8CKEzBVwc25EyjMpsupDCIFakZU99ocIRIHppEWu9BPeVbCmIxWBIew9KEXmm-jXCz0E0jbTqbmO1izIQZvFbT0-Z5LAZDNdcGlxB7ufLWTp/s500/GirlsThatNeverDie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="333" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrZZHXenysyMszSNxTgeWJZk1byXmEoyQHigeQ6ck9Bsc9CIhMX9CX-bmilo9KOWpzuL0nSpqmiGTOSeDz8CKEzBVwc25EyjMpsupDCIFakZU99ocIRIHppEWu9BPeVbCmIxWBIew9KEXmm-jXCz0E0jbTqbmO1izIQZvFbT0-Z5LAZDNdcGlxB7ufLWTp/s320/GirlsThatNeverDie.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br /><em style="background-color: white;"><br /></em></div></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table>Velomannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11735152500677012292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423547439007971594.post-36538695170397357922023-10-26T20:16:00.005-07:002023-10-26T20:16:37.144-07:00<h2 style="text-align: left;"> Portrait & Shadow</h2><h4 style="text-align: left;">by Andres Cerpa</h4><p style="text-align: left;">The curtains sail into the room with the memory of presence behind them<br /><br />while my father waits in the dark taking apart what is left of his former selves,<br /> like a pianist, drunk at the keys, playing the same four notes,</p><p style="text-align: left;"><span>letting them ring in the pedals until they haul themselves back into sleep.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;">He says, <i>I am shadow</i></p><p style="text-align: left;">& the thief at the seam of his spine slides through the blades of his shoulders,<br /> hollows the blood, while the dopamine cheapens</p><p style="text-align: left;">like a dollar-store lighter & suddenly, another streak in his Depends emerges as proof.</p><p style="text-align: left;">This too in Arcadia--</p><p style="text-align: left;">the meadow in twilight's last streak of red before he enters the tree line,</p><p style="text-align: left;">which is already waiting, its small footpaths like paintings held in storage,<br /> their deep palettes so close they strangle to a labyrinth</p><p style="text-align: left;"><span>laced on an MRI-black. The wolf there tears at his tendons,</span></p><p style="text-align: left;">leaves him always in a fog, & if he emerges it is only to watch but not to enter<br /> the burning city & self he still loves.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><span>He says, <i>I am the smoke's mascara</i></span></p><p style="text-align: left;">& I know he is imagining the Bronx he can never return to,<br /> where his youth is held in the thin frame of a bicycle</p><p style="text-align: left;">as it cuts through a billow of smoke. The city burned each night & each morning<br /> he rose to ride through the rubble. The what was,</p><p style="text-align: left;"><span><span><span><span>the father I hold onto to care for his shadow never gets old--</span></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;">he is kind & clear. He rises each morning & lifts me onto the back of his bicycle,<br /> he pedals while I glide above the city in wonder.</p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYPBRUu7Fj9x022f60qWsc50_DJ7mtckPrawNAN_hrZhXHE86Msfpy155jVak3jvD2rLRdmN31YJjEjHZ3xnLN9pyJzZTvFZytpK_-YBKQUHvkUACkXd9NI_d3IIHnC8Kbqk3WXGuz1KJZCqXdtyMyh5B4Hi6PMv8vU1WPWE0i-DzYwguCG9jtKsMF9Zep/s1350/Bicycle_cover_AJB-FInal-frontcoveronly%20(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1038" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYPBRUu7Fj9x022f60qWsc50_DJ7mtckPrawNAN_hrZhXHE86Msfpy155jVak3jvD2rLRdmN31YJjEjHZ3xnLN9pyJzZTvFZytpK_-YBKQUHvkUACkXd9NI_d3IIHnC8Kbqk3WXGuz1KJZCqXdtyMyh5B4Hi6PMv8vU1WPWE0i-DzYwguCG9jtKsMF9Zep/s320/Bicycle_cover_AJB-FInal-frontcoveronly%20(1).jpg" width="246" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br /></div><br /><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>Velomannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11735152500677012292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423547439007971594.post-25856497291511947882023-04-16T15:51:00.001-07:002023-04-16T15:51:27.857-07:00 Jubilate Civitas<p> </p><table align="center" bgcolor="#ffffff" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background-color: white; border-spacing: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; width: 540px;"><tbody><tr style="border-collapse: collapse;"><td height="35" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin: 0px;"><h3><b>by Patrick Phillips</b></h3></td></tr><tr style="border-collapse: collapse;"><td style="border-collapse: collapse; margin: 0px;" valign="top"><table align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-spacing: 0px;"><tbody><tr style="border-collapse: collapse;"><td style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px;">I will consider a slice of pizza.<br style="line-height: 17px;" /><br style="line-height: 17px;" />For rare among pleasures in Gotham, it is both<br style="line-height: 17px;" /> exquisite and blessedly cheap.<br style="line-height: 17px;" /><br style="line-height: 17px;" />For its warmth is embracing, its smell the<br style="line-height: 17px;" /> quintessence of hope.<br style="line-height: 17px;" /><br style="line-height: 17px;" />For it can be found in all boroughs, every few blocks,<br style="line-height: 17px;" /> yet never two slices the same.<br style="line-height: 17px;" /><br style="line-height: 17px;" />For its makers speak many tongues.<br style="line-height: 17px;" /><br style="line-height: 17px;" />For dusting the counter with cornmeal and flour,<br style="line-height: 17px;" /> without looking down, they pummel and roll out<br style="line-height: 17px;" /> the dough.<br style="line-height: 17px;" /><br style="line-height: 17px;" />For they heap out the still-steaming sauce and, with a<br style="line-height: 17px;" /> touch of the ladle, paint it in rings like a bull’s-eye,<br style="line-height: 17px;" /> or a tree-stump, or a thumb.<br style="line-height: 17px;" /><br style="line-height: 17px;" />For they smile at each other’s jokes, grasping great<br style="line-height: 17px;" /> handfuls of cheese.<br style="line-height: 17px;" /><br style="line-height: 17px;" />For wiping both hands on an apron, they nod at the<br style="line-height: 17px;" /> phrase “not too hot,” and start one of a hundred<br style="line-height: 17px;" /> little clocks in their heads.<br style="line-height: 17px;" /><br style="line-height: 17px;" />For their corded forearms reach deep in the oven with<br style="line-height: 17px;" /> a long-handled paddle, giving each pie, with a flick,<br style="line-height: 17px;" /> its requisite spin.<br style="line-height: 17px;" /><br style="line-height: 17px;" />For heat bubbles and blisters and browns the<br style="line-height: 17px;" /> miraculous crust.<br style="line-height: 17px;" /><br style="line-height: 17px;" />For even in the tiniest shop you can find every style:<br style="line-height: 17px;" /> sagging with mushrooms and bacon, broccoli and<br style="line-height: 17px;" /> pineapple, chicken, and sausage, and onion.<br style="line-height: 17px;" /><br style="line-height: 17px;" />For time passes slowly awaiting a slice, and reminds us<br style="line-height: 17px;" /> how sweet it is to be alive at this moment on earth.<br style="line-height: 17px;" /><br style="line-height: 17px;" />For it slides to a stop in a little city of shakers, where<br style="line-height: 17px;" /> with pepper and oregano, garlic and parmesan, we<br style="line-height: 17px;" /> citizens make it our own.<br style="line-height: 17px;" /><br style="line-height: 17px;" />For you can fold it in half like a taco and eat it while<br style="line-height: 17px;" /> standing or driving, or walking and working your<br style="line-height: 17px;" /> phone.<br style="line-height: 17px;" /><br style="line-height: 17px;" />For I have seen the bearded young men of Brooklyn<br style="line-height: 17px;" /> sit upright to eat it, riding bicycles through<br style="line-height: 17px;" /> redlights, at midnight, in the rain.<br style="line-height: 17px;" /><br style="line-height: 17px;" />For with each bite the paper plate grows more<br style="line-height: 17px;" /> translucent with grease, till it glows like stained<br style="line-height: 17px;" /> glass over the trash can.<br style="line-height: 17px;" /><br style="line-height: 17px;" />For it has nourished our children and soothed many<br style="line-height: 17px;" /> sorrows.<br style="line-height: 17px;" /><br style="line-height: 17px;" />For in a time of deceit it is honest and upright,<br style="line-height: 17px;" /> steadfast and good—beloved and modest and<br style="line-height: 17px;" /> known.<br style="line-height: 17px;" /><br style="line-height: 17px;" />For its commerce makes nobody rich and nobody<br style="line-height: 17px;" /> poor.<br style="line-height: 17px;" /><br style="line-height: 17px;" />For that, to us, it is home.<br /><br /><b>From the book <i>Song of the Closing Doors<br /></i></b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjL7Gxpgsaf53nGeJycGtPy42mkvA4RaP486yrOs-hcMqP9QnqY1TJoVLSnOz84hktJZQO1OzyoVnijC-dWQiE1PTycdNoZNgCl28qZr5E9q8NqLJCILtYlc7m-9Q9HyHADAvpCC2bhxG_A6ZzLBfWYbK1nZfDrPP0JZGuUYwVdHG49b_56bDe0z4R6NA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="316" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjL7Gxpgsaf53nGeJycGtPy42mkvA4RaP486yrOs-hcMqP9QnqY1TJoVLSnOz84hktJZQO1OzyoVnijC-dWQiE1PTycdNoZNgCl28qZr5E9q8NqLJCILtYlc7m-9Q9HyHADAvpCC2bhxG_A6ZzLBfWYbK1nZfDrPP0JZGuUYwVdHG49b_56bDe0z4R6NA" width="169" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table>Velomannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11735152500677012292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423547439007971594.post-26421427541634177942021-09-19T16:11:00.001-07:002021-09-19T16:15:31.066-07:00For Henry's Bar<p> </p><h3 style="text-align: left;">By Joseph Rios</h3><div class="card-body" data-v-197036e9="" style="-webkit-box-flex: 1; box-sizing: border-box; color: #343434; flex: 1 1 auto; font-family: "Poets Electra", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 1.5; padding: 1.25rem;"><div class="poem__actions vertical dark" data-v-197036e9="" data-v-1e4a20ad="" style="-webkit-box-flex: 1; box-sizing: border-box; flex-grow: 1; font-size: 1.25rem; left: -3rem; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; position: absolute; width: 33px;"><ul class="poem__actions__social d-flex flex-wrap" data-v-1e4a20ad="" style="-webkit-box-direction: normal; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-flow: column wrap; flex-wrap: wrap !important; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><li class="pr-2" data-v-1e4a20ad="" style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; padding-right: 0.6rem;"><a data-v-1e4a20ad="" href="https://facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fpoets.org%2Fpoem%2Fhenrys-bar&t=For%20Henry%E2%80%99s%20Bar" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #007ab3; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><img data-v-1e4a20ad="" src="https://poets.org/social/facebook.svg" style="border-style: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 6px; vertical-align: middle;" /></a></li><li class="pr-2" data-v-1e4a20ad="" style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; padding-right: 0.6rem;"><a data-v-1e4a20ad="" href="https://twitter.com/share?text=For%20Henry%E2%80%99s%20Bar&url=https%3A%2F%2Fpoets.org%2Fpoem%2Fhenrys-bar" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #007ab3; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><img data-v-1e4a20ad="" src="https://poets.org/social/twitter.svg" style="border-style: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 6px; vertical-align: middle;" /></a></li><li class="pr-2" data-v-1e4a20ad="" style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; padding-right: 0.6rem;"><a data-v-1e4a20ad="" href="https://tumblr.com/share/link?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpoets.org%2Fpoem%2Fhenrys-bar&name=For%20Henry%E2%80%99s%20Bar" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #007ab3; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><img data-v-1e4a20ad="" src="https://poets.org/social/tumblr.svg" style="border-style: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 6px; vertical-align: middle;" /></a></li><li class="pr-2" data-v-1e4a20ad="" style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; padding-right: 0.6rem;"><a data-v-1e4a20ad="" href="https://poets.org/print/poem/a628440d-1580-4385-8c6f-cc739a8f3128" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #007ab3; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><img data-v-1e4a20ad="" src="https://poets.org/social/print.svg" style="border-style: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 6px; vertical-align: middle;" /></a></li><li class="pr-2" data-v-1e4a20ad="" style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; padding-right: 0.6rem;"><a data-v-1e4a20ad="" href="https://poets.org/poem/henrys-bar?mc_cid=235462426b&mc_eid=ab8f4a16a2#" role="button" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #007ab3; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_self"><img data-v-1e4a20ad="" src="https://poets.org/social/embed.svg" style="border-style: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 6px; vertical-align: middle;" /></a></li><li class="pr-2" data-v-1e4a20ad="" style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; padding-right: 0.6rem;"><a data-v-1e4a20ad="" href="https://poets.org/poem/henrys-bar?mc_cid=235462426b&mc_eid=ab8f4a16a2#" role="button" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #007ab3; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_self"><img data-v-1e4a20ad="" src="https://poets.org/social/collection.svg" style="border-style: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 6px; vertical-align: middle;" /></a></li></ul><div data-v-1e4a20ad="" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div><div data-v-1e4a20ad="" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div></div><div class="poem__body px-md-4 font-serif" data-v-197036e9="" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-left: 0.5rem; padding-right: 0.5rem;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">I’m on an errand to find my grandpa. I’m ten</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">and finding freedom in a sanctioned outing</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">on my bike through the streets of Clovis, CA.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">I roll past Silver’s house and peek into the backyard</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">of broke drunks holding paper bags around</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">a barrel fire. One who just came back</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">from taking a leak is seasoning some carne</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">they bought with the tallboys across the street</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">at Numero Uno market. The door chimes when</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">I walk in and see Artemio’s white mane. His mustache</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">stretches from his nostrils to his sideburns</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">and up into his waxed pomp of hair.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">My grandma says I’m not supposed to talk to him,</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">but he always asks how she’s doing.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">I don’t see my grandpa anyplace. Art says<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">he’s around somewhere. I go to Ruby’s</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">next door. I’m not allowed, but I look in.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">I’m hit with a gust of cigarettes and Bud Light.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">Half a dozen heads turn my direction. No dice.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">I ride down Pollasky with feet out each way.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">I swerve left and right, free, for once. I am this</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">far from the shouting distance of my grandma.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">I take to the alley just for kicks and pop a wheelie</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">behind the appliance shop. I pull up behind Henry’s,</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">knowing grandpa’s in there. A few other grandpas too.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">I don’t knock. I stay on my bike. I realize<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">I’m not ready to go home and like most men</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">in this town, grandpa doesn’t want to be found.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">I keep riding. I go North toward what’s left</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">of the railroad tracks. There’s a grey cloud</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">moving across the sky and I imagine I’m</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">chasing it, I’m right behind it. I keep riding</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">until it’s all oleanders and stacked railroad ties.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">I never thought I could go this far. I get off</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">the seat and stand. I glide next to a forgotten</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">caboose. I imagine I’m the howling train now.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;">My tires kick dust as they crunch over the dry dry dirt.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yW8uhHjuyL0/YUfEZhMo2oI/AAAAAAAAYe0/X2F2JtAI43QJDf3CQgV6kgWxADQUnf2fgCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/shadowboxing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="267" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yW8uhHjuyL0/YUfEZhMo2oI/AAAAAAAAYe0/X2F2JtAI43QJDf3CQgV6kgWxADQUnf2fgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/shadowboxing.jpg" width="214" /></a></div><br /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;"><br /><br /></span></p></div></div>Velomannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11735152500677012292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423547439007971594.post-20565488952085387932021-04-05T11:00:00.003-07:002021-04-05T11:02:04.577-07:00Easter Sunday Poem<p> </p><table align="center" bgcolor="#ffffff" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background-color: white; border-spacing: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; width: 540px;"><tbody><tr style="border-collapse: collapse;"><td height="35" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin: 0px;"><b>by Tammy Melody Gomez</b><br /><br /><br /></td></tr><tr style="border-collapse: collapse;"><td style="border-collapse: collapse; margin: 0px;" valign="top"><table align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-spacing: 0px;"><tbody><tr style="border-collapse: collapse;"><td style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px;">According to my plan,<br style="line-height: 17px;" />I did indeed bike to Mama’s home<br style="line-height: 17px;" />on Easter Sunday / yesterday.<br style="line-height: 17px;" /><br style="line-height: 17px;" />We chatted from a distance,<br style="line-height: 17px;" />she at her front door,<br style="line-height: 17px;" />me on St. Augustine lawn.<br style="line-height: 17px;" />Our Easter Sunday family gathering<br style="line-height: 17px;" />in the year of COVID,<br style="line-height: 17px;" />without a table or a meal.<br style="line-height: 17px;" /><br style="line-height: 17px;" />From my daypack, I brought out<br style="line-height: 17px;" />an empty shell with cut paper filling:<br style="line-height: 17px;" />a hand-painted cascarón—confetti egg—<br style="line-height: 17px;" /><br style="line-height: 17px;" />and gently placed it<br style="line-height: 17px;" />one lone one<br style="line-height: 17px;" /><br style="line-height: 17px;" />on her porch and stepped away,<br style="line-height: 17px;" /><em>I won’t mind if you leave it there</em><br style="line-height: 17px;" /><em>or maybe just smash it with your shoe.</em><br style="line-height: 17px;" /><br style="line-height: 17px;" />Our hearts have been broken before<br style="line-height: 17px;" /><br style="line-height: 17px;" />when prison, money, or unsettled rifts<br style="line-height: 17px;" />have kept us from our holiday home.<br style="line-height: 17px;" /><br style="line-height: 17px;" />Today, by phone,<br style="line-height: 17px;" />Mama tells me that she<br style="line-height: 17px;" />forgot about it overnight<br style="line-height: 17px;" />but now<br style="line-height: 17px;" />the one lone cascarón<br style="line-height: 17px;" />is inside her house.<br style="line-height: 17px;" />“She’s cute,” Mama said.<br style="line-height: 17px;" />“It’s a she to me.”<br /><br /><br />From the collection <b><i>Together In A Sudden Strangeness: America's Poets Respond to the Pandemic</i></b>, edited by Alice Quinn<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">(Which just so happens to have a bicycle on the cover.)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-WLaqQwVz3Ww/YGtProSN7sI/AAAAAAAAYTs/MVy53pSvDEErs9AV3lJuaur4pK8BfAN4QCLcBGAsYHQ/image.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="318" height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-WLaqQwVz3Ww/YGtProSN7sI/AAAAAAAAYTs/MVy53pSvDEErs9AV3lJuaur4pK8BfAN4QCLcBGAsYHQ/image.png" width="170" /></a></div><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><br /><br />Velomannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11735152500677012292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423547439007971594.post-33448517848367633502021-01-25T13:53:00.004-08:002021-01-25T13:53:57.849-08:00Purple-Handed<p> WHICH THE PHRASE <i>red-handed</i>, meaning caught in the act, meaning smeared with guilt, out out damned spot, is a bastardization of, given as purple-handed is the result, this time of year, of harvesting mulberries, which Aesop's ant might do with freezer bags or Tupperware, but, being sometimes a grasshopper, I do with my mouth, for that is one of the ways I adore the world, camped out like this beneath my favorite mulberry on cemetery road, aka Elm Street, aka, as of today, Mulberry Street, the wheel of my bike still spinning, as the pendulous black berries almost drop into my hands, smearing them purple and sweet, guilty as charged.</p><p>by Ross Gay</p><p>From <b><i>The Book of Delights</i></b></p><p><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-aqBLH8mrotA/YA89HnRsQOI/AAAAAAAAYOw/knsl46NgAXgD5xxagLDaJj6i43ip6qddACLcBGAsYHQ/image.png" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="253" height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-aqBLH8mrotA/YA89HnRsQOI/AAAAAAAAYOw/knsl46NgAXgD5xxagLDaJj6i43ip6qddACLcBGAsYHQ/image.png" width="173" /></a></p><p>This book of "essayettes" - sometimes prose-poems - was chosen as the 2021 Everybody Reads selection by the Multnomah County Library, and will be made available for free to all patrons beginning in early February, 2021.</p><p><b><i><br /><br /></i></b></p>Velomannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11735152500677012292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423547439007971594.post-84400755905716758092021-01-25T13:40:00.000-08:002021-01-25T13:40:13.813-08:00Street Birds<h3 style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">By Tyree Daye</span></h3><span id="docs-internal-guid-088d7f05-7fff-760f-eb0b-1446be5da722"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We hunt here, I was shown death</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">at the age of seven, something dead</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in my uncle’s hands.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I touched the belly of the black snake</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">felt its body a muscle tense.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I know nothing</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of the baby birds cut</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">from the sour smell of its stomach,</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">just as I know nothing</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of the sister and brother I watched cut</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">from the back seat of a flipped over car,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">their own little cave.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My uncle tossed the thin-winged birds</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">into the air; lost</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in the overgrown wood forever.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They never flew, never rode</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">their Huffy bikes from street end</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to street end.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Never raced each other,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">never turned a bike into a motorcycle</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">with an empty orange soda can. The black snake tail</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">will swirl until the sun goes down,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">until the devil comes to get it.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I began to pray</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">for a new skin for my mother.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Once I cold name </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">all the new things.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mutt puppies</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, new heads of lettuce,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">my uncle’s new car, new red heart.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">From <b><i>River Hymns</i></b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-erV-r5TGyd0/YA855I4yHyI/AAAAAAAAYOk/Yyar-6AWrmQJsu_FvhLfrdW4JJJaNlOiQCLcBGAsYHQ/image.png" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;"><img alt="" data-original-height="293" data-original-width="201" height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-erV-r5TGyd0/YA855I4yHyI/AAAAAAAAYOk/Yyar-6AWrmQJsu_FvhLfrdW4JJJaNlOiQCLcBGAsYHQ/image.png" width="165" /></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><b><i><br /><br /></i></b></p><div><br /></div></span>Velomannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11735152500677012292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423547439007971594.post-63967484203884210652020-05-15T13:51:00.003-07:002020-05-15T13:51:25.226-07:00Prayer<h4 style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;">
by Laura Kasichke</h4>
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The windshield’s dirty, the squirter stuff’s all gone, so</div>
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we drive on together into a sun-gray pane of grime<br />and dust. My son</div>
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puts the passenger seat back as far as it will go, closes<br />his eyes. I crack my window open for a bit<br />of fresher air. It’s so</div>
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incredibly fresh out there.</div>
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Rain, over.<br />Puddles left<br />in ditches. Black mirrors with our passing </div>
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reflected in them, I suppose, but I’d<br />have to pull over and kneel down at the side<br />of the road to know.</div>
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The day ahead—</div>
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for this, the radio<br />doesn’t need to be played.<br />The house we used to live in</div>
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still exists<br />in a snapshot, in which<br />it yellows in another family’s scrapbook.</div>
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And a man on a bicycle<br />rides beside us<br />for a long time, very swiftly, until finally</div>
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he can’t keep up—</div>
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but before he slips<br />behind us, he salutes us<br />with his left hand—</div>
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a reminder:</div>
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that every single second—<br />that every prisoner on death row—<br />that every name on every tombstone—</div>
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that everywhere we go—<br />that every day, like this one, will<br />be like every other, having never been, never</div>
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ending. So<br />thank you. And, oh—<br />I almost forgot to say it: amen.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Again, a poem from the Poem-a-Day posts by the Academy of American Poets. The author says:</div>
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</div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">“This prayer of thanksgiving was inspired by exactly the things I put in the poem: the ordinary drive with my son beside me in the passenger seat; the man who rode his bike beside us and saluted us; the weather and the sense of stability and gratitude for stability I had at that moment; the sense that things were going to last and be preserved, if only in memories and snapshots, glimpses of recognition passed between strangers, or between human beings and what felt, at that moment to me, like a benevolent creator who deserved some acknowledgment, even if we are really, all of us, on death row, even if the immortality I felt I got a glimpse of might have been the kind of immortality one achieves having had her name chiseled onto a tombstone. But, I had a lovely glimpse of eternity there, for a minute.”</span><br />
<br />Velomannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11735152500677012292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423547439007971594.post-28224623840735389592020-05-07T17:07:00.003-07:002020-05-07T17:07:39.645-07:00You Rode a Loop<h3>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px;">by Rosa Alcalá</span></h3>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px;">You rode your bike from your house on the corner to the dead end of the street, and turned it around at the factory, back to the corner again. This was the loop your mother let you ride, not along the avenue with its cavalcade of trucks, or up the block where Drac the Dropout waited to plunge his pointy incisors into virginal necks. You can’t remember exactly your age, but you probably had a bike with a banana seat, and wore cutoff jeans and sweat socks to the knees. You are trying to be precise but everything is a carbon-like surface that scrolls by with pinpricks emitting memory’s wavy threads. One is blindingly bright and lasts only seconds: You are riding your bike and the shadowy blots behind the factory windows’ steel grates emit sounds that reach and wrap around you like a type of gravity that pulls down the face. You can’t see them but what they say is what men say all day long, to women who are trying to get somewhere. It’s not something you hadn’t heard before. But until then, you only had your ass grabbed by boys your own age—boys you knew, who you could name—in a daily playground game in which teachers looked away. In another pin prick, you loop back to your house, where your mother is standing on the corner talking to neighbors. You tell her what the men said, and ask, does this mean I’m beautiful? What did she say? Try remembering: You are standing on the corner with your mother. You are standing on the corner. This pinprick emits no light; it is dark, it is her silence. Someday you will have a daughter and the dead end will become a cul de sac and all the factories will be shut down or at the edges of town, and the men behind screens will be monitored, blocked. And when things seem safe, and everything is green and historic and homey, you will let her walk from school to park, where you’ll wait for her, thanks to a flexible schedule, on the corner. And when she walks daydreaming along the way and takes too long to reach you, the words they said will hang from the tree you wait under.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px;">This poem appeared on Poem-a-Day, the daily poems from the Academy of American Poets, on May 7, 2020. The author information reads:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">“One in a series of poems tracing the ways gender violence is normalized, ‘You Rode a Loop’ is about a first memory of being catcalled, and about memory itself, its iterations and gaps and grip. It is also about the messages girls receive, and the things that go unsaid between mothers and daughters.” </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif;" /><em style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">—Rosa Alcalá</em>Velomannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11735152500677012292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423547439007971594.post-28878947605227251362019-04-07T12:10:00.000-07:002019-04-07T12:10:01.062-07:00I used to be a roller coaster girl<h4>
by jessica Care moore</h4>
<i>(for Ntozake Shange)</i><br />
<br />
I used to be a roller coaster girl<br />
7 times in a row<br />
No vertigo in these skinny legs<br />
My lipstick bubblegum pink<br />
As my panther 10 speed.<br />
<br />
never kissed<br />
<br />
Nappy pigtails, no-brand gym shoes<br />
White lined yellow short-shorts<br />
<br />
Scratched up legs pedaling past borders of<br />
humus and baba ganoush<br />
masjids and liquor stores<br />
City chicken, pepperoni bread<br />
and superman ice cream<br />
Cones.<br />
<br />
Yellow black blending with bits of Arabic<br />
Islam and Catholicism.<br />
<br />
My daddy was Jesus<br />
My mother was quiet<br />
Jayne Kennedy was worshiped<br />
by my brother Mark<br />
<br />
I don't remember having my own bed before 12.<br />
Me and my sister Lisa shared.<br />
<br />
Sometimes all three Moore girls slept in the Queen.<br />
<br />
You grow up so close<br />
never close enough.<br />
<br />
I used to be a roller coaster girl<br />
Wild child full of flowers and ideas<br />
Useless crushes on polish boys<br />
in a school full of white girls.<br />
<br />
Future black swan singing<br />
Zeppelin, U2 and Rick Springfield<br />
<br />
<i>Hoping to be Jessie's Girl</i><br />
<br />
I could outrun my brothers and<br />
Everybody else to that<br />
<br />
recurring line<br />
<br />
I used to be a roller coaster girl<br />
Till you told me I was moving too fast<br />
Said my rush made your head spin<br />
My laughter hurt your ears<br />
<br />
A scream of happiness<br />
A whisper of freedom<br />
Pouring out my armpits<br />
Sweating up my neck<br />
<br />
You were always the scared one<br />
I kept my eyes open for the entire trip<br />
Right before the drop I would brace myself<br />
And let that force push my head back into<br />
<br />
That hard iron seat<br />
<br />
My arms nearly fell off a few times<br />
Still I kept running back to the line<br />
When I was done<br />
Same way I kept running back to you<br />
<br />
I used to be a roller coaster girl<br />
I wasn't scared of mountains or falling<br />
Hell, I looked forward to falling and dropping<br />
Off this earth and coming back to life<br />
<br />
every once in a while<br />
<br />
I found some peace in being out of control<br />
allowing my blood to race<br />
through my veins for 180 seconds<br />
<br />
I earned my sometimes nicotine pull<br />
I buy my own damn drinks & the ocean<br />
Still calls my name when it feels my toes<br />
Near its shore.<br />
<br />
I still love roller coasters<br />
& you grew up to be<br />
Afraid<br />
of all girls who cld<br />
ride<br />
<br />
Fearlessly<br />
<br />
Like<br />
me.<br />
<br />
<br />
<img alt="Image result for Sunlight through bullet holes" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51thLqgBzBL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" /><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Velomannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11735152500677012292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423547439007971594.post-84333611418611094292019-04-07T11:22:00.002-07:002019-04-07T11:24:55.362-07:0013 Questions for the Next Economy<h4>
by Susan Briante</h4>
On the side of the road, white cardboard in the shape of a man,<br />
illegible script. A signpost with scrawl: <i>Will pay cash for diabetes strips.</i><br />
<br />
A system under the system with its black box. <i> Disability hearing?</i><br />
a billboard reads.<i> Trouble with Social Security?</i> Where does the riot begin?<br />
<br />
Spark of dry grass, Russian thistle in flames, or butterflies bobbing<br />
as if pulled by unseen strings through the alleyway.<br />
<br />
My mother's riot would have been peace. A bicycle wheel<br />
chained to a concrete planter. What metaphor<br />
<br />
can I use to describe the children sleeping in cages in detention<br />
centers? Bird pushed fenceward by a breeze? A train of brake lights<br />
<br />
extending? Mesquite pods mill under our feet<br />
on a rainless sidewalk. What revolution will my daughter feed?<br />
<br />
A break-the-state twig-quick snap or a long divining as if<br />
for water? A cotton silence? A death? Who will read this<br />
<br />
in the next economy, the one that comes after the one that kills us?<br />
What lessons will we take from the side of the road? A wooden crucifix,<br />
<br />
a white bicycle, a pinwheel, a poem, ICE<br />
waiting to be redacted: Which would you cross out? <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<img alt="Image result for The market wonders" src="http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSyOobfZze1kDEDFmYW_PbOSKhh9c1JICfRMg8_XF5Ke0_UoXr-" height="320" width="236" /><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Velomannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11735152500677012292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423547439007971594.post-67554486181523376972019-04-07T10:59:00.004-07:002019-04-07T10:59:31.602-07:00Unmarked<h3>
by Tim Seibles</h3>
<br />
<div style="background-color: #f6f5f4; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, sans-serif !important; font-size: 16px !important; font-stretch: normal !important; font-variant-east-asian: normal !important; font-variant-numeric: normal !important; line-height: 24px !important; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #505050;"> </span></em><em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> for Natalie</em></div>
<div style="background-color: #f6f5f4; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, sans-serif !important; font-size: 16px !important; font-stretch: normal !important; font-variant-east-asian: normal !important; font-variant-numeric: normal !important; line-height: 24px !important; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: #f6f5f4; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, sans-serif !important; font-size: 16px !important; font-stretch: normal !important; font-variant-east-asian: normal !important; font-variant-numeric: normal !important; line-height: 24px !important; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: baseline;">
So much like sequins<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />the sunlight on this river.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Something like that kiss—<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />remember?<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Fourth of July</em>, with the moon<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />down early the air moved<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />as if it were thinking,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />as if it had begun<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />to understand<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />how hard it is<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />to feel at home<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />in the world,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />but that night<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />she found a place<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />just above your shoulder<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />and pressed her lips<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />there. Soft rain<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />had called off the fireworks:<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />the sky was quiet, but<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />back on Earth<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />two boys cruised by on bikes<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />trying out bad words. You turned<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />to reach her mouth,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />at last, with yours after weeks<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />of long walks, talking<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />about former loves<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />gone awry—<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />how the soul finally<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />falls down<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />and gets up alone<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />once more</div>
<div style="background-color: #f6f5f4; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, sans-serif !important; font-size: 16px !important; font-stretch: normal !important; font-variant-east-asian: normal !important; font-variant-numeric: normal !important; line-height: 24px !important; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />finding the city strange,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />the streets unmarked.</div>
<div style="background-color: #f6f5f4; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, sans-serif !important; font-size: 16px !important; font-stretch: normal !important; font-variant-east-asian: normal !important; font-variant-numeric: normal !important; line-height: 24px !important; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: #f6f5f4; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, sans-serif !important; font-size: 16px !important; font-stretch: normal !important; font-variant-east-asian: normal !important; font-variant-numeric: normal !important; line-height: 24px !important; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: baseline;">
Every time you meet someone<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />it’s hard not to wonder<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />who they’ve been—one story<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />breaking so much<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />into the next: memory<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />engraves its hesitations—<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />but that night<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />you found yourself<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />unafraid. Do you remember<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />what the wind told the trees<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />about her brown hair?—<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />how the cool dark turned around:<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />that first kiss,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />long as a river.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Didn’t it seem like you already loved her?<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Off the sidewalk: a small pond,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />the tall cattails, all those sleepy koi<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />coloring the water.</div>
<div style="height: 0px;">
x</div>
Velomannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11735152500677012292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423547439007971594.post-21416844218334094102018-09-15T16:04:00.001-07:002018-09-15T16:04:21.574-07:00Parkinson's Disease: Autumn<br />
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" id="Body-Background" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border-collapse: collapse; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: top; width: 100%px;"><tbody style="border-collapse: collapse; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">
<tr style="border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><td style="border-collapse: collapse; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px;"><h4 style="text-align: left;">
by Andrès Cerpa</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
When I woke for school the next day the sky was uniform & less than </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
infinite</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
with the confusion of autumn & my father</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
as he became distant with disease the way a boy falls beneath the ice,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
before the men that cannot save him-</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
the cold like a <i>forever</i> on his lips.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Soon, he was never up before us & we'd jump on the bed,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>wake up, wake up</i>,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
& my sister's hair was still in curls then, & my favorite photograph still </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
hung:</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
my father's back to us, leading a bicycle uphill.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
At the top, the roads vanish & turn-</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
the leaves leant yellow in a frozen sprint of light, & there, the forward</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
motion.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The nights I laid in the crutch of my parents' doorway & dreamt awake,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
listened like a field of snow,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I heard no answer. Then sleepless slept in my own arms beneath</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
the window</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
to the teacher's blank & lull-</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Mrs. Belmont's lesson on Eden that year. Autumn: dusk:</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
my bicycle beside me in the withered & yet-to-be leaves,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
& my eyes closed fast beneath the mystery of migration, the flock's </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
rippled wake:</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Velomannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11735152500677012292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423547439007971594.post-30564976254477512362018-07-16T10:17:00.001-07:002018-07-16T10:17:32.526-07:00Walking<h4>
by Tone Skrjanec<br />translated by Matthew Rohrer & Ana Pepelnik</h4>
<br />
such a sticky day today.<br />
coins clang in my pocket as i walk.<br />
piles of ducklings are squatting in the shade of a tree<br />
which could, at a quick glance, be a willow.<br />
two women with legs bare to the knees are laughing<br />
and gesticulating blessedly while crossing the street<br />
that winds around the lake. walking is important.<br />
thinking while walking. bodies while walking.<br />
three cyclists on the top of the stairs are from another world.<br />
covered with science-fiction helmets,<br />
all red and flushed. looking like aliens.<br />
while you walk you meet many almost divine creatures,<br />
i.e. ducks, which i have already mentioned,<br />
or this one here, sitting all by itself by the lake<br />
and, seemingly without purpose, widely opening its beak,<br />
so its long and slender neck is beautifully tightening.<br />
such a sticky day, and yet<br />
such a nice evening's silence.<br />
just cars, birds, and oars<br />
from afar hitting the lake,<br />
and it seems that we animals are mostly satisfied.<br />
<br />Velomannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11735152500677012292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423547439007971594.post-17235937200180668232018-04-29T12:02:00.001-07:002018-04-29T12:05:17.460-07:00Laura Kasische - Bicycle Poems<div style="text-align: center;">
<img alt="Image result" src="http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSPWwTNFxGREAzYqKqe64SwvEvHn08fbmY51kc30cgHUpw8K5Rh" height="320" width="218" /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I had no familiarity with Laura Kasischke's poetry until reading one of her poems in the Poem-A-Day feed. I checked out <b><i>Where Now: New and Selected Poems</i></b> from Copper Canyon Press and am more than halfway through it. It's overdue at the library and can't be renewed but this one is worth the fine. Below are four poems in which bicycles are prominent, including one that may be the only poem ever written to include TWO of my favorite things in the world, a bicycle and Old Faithful geyser. She can be forgiven for calling a bison a buffalo; it's common among tourists and more poetic, as William Cody would surely agree.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
For the Young Woman I Saw Hit by a Car While Riding Her Bike</h3>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I'll tell you up front: She was fine - although</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
she left in an ambulance because</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I called 9-1-1</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
and what else can you do</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
when they've come for you</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
with their siren and lights</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
and you're young and polite</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
except get into their ambulance</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
and pretend to smile?</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
"Thanks" she said to me</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
before they closed her up. (They</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
even tucked </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
her bike in there. Not</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
one bent spoke on either tire.) But I</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
was shaking and sobbing too hard to say goodbye.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I imagine her telling her friends later, "It</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
hardly grazed me, but</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
this lady who saw it went crazy..."</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I did. I was</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
molecular, while</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
even the driver who hit her did</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
little more than roll his eyes, while</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
a trucker stuck at the intersection, wolfing</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
down a swan</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
sandwich behind the wheel, sighed. Some-</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
one touched me on the shoulder</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
and asked, "Are you all right?"</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
(Over</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
in ten seconds. She</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
stood, all</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
blond, shook</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
her wings like a little cough.)</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
"Are you</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
okay?" someone else asked me. Uneasily, as if</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
overhearing my heartbeat</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
and embarrasses for me</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
that I was made</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
of such gushing meat</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
in the middle of the day</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
on a quiet street.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
"They should have put <i>her</i> </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
in the ambulance, not me."</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Laughter.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Shit happens.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
To be young.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
To shrug it off:</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
But, ah sweet</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
thing, take</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
pity. One</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
day you too may be</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
an accumulation</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
of regrets, catastrophes.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
A clay animation</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
of Psalm 73 (<i>but</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>as for me, my feet</i>...). No. It will be</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Psalm 48: <i>They</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>saw it,</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>and so they marveled; they</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>were troubled, and hasted away</i>. Today</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
you don't remember the way</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
you called my name, so</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
desperately, a thousand times, tearing</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
your hair, and your clothes on the floor, and</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
the nurse who denied your morphne</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
so that you had to die that morning</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
under a single sheet</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
without me, in</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
agony, but</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
this time I was beside you.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I waited, and I saved you.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I was there.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Buffalo</h3>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I had the baby in my arms, he was asleep.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
We were waiting for Old Faithful, who was late.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The tourists smelled like flowers, or</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
like shafts of perfume moving</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
from bench to bench, from</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
gift shop to port-o-pot. The sun</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
was a fluid smear in the sky. Like</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
white hair in water. The women</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
were as beautiful as the men, who</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
were so beautiful they never needed</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
to see their wives or children again.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
It happened then.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Something underground. The hush of sound.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I remembered </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
once pretending</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
to have eaten a butterfly.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
My mother held my arms hard until</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I told her it was a lie</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
and then I sighed. I've</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
loved every minute of my life!</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The day I learned to ride a bike</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
without training wheels, I</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
might as well have been riding a bike</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
with no wheels at all! If</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
at any time I'd</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
had to agree to bear</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
twenty-seven sorrows</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
for a single one of these joys...</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
If the agreement were that I</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
had to love it all so much</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
just, in the end, to die...</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Still, I can taste those wings I didn't eat, the sweet</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
and tender lavender of them. One</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
tourist covered her mouth</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
with a hand</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
and seemed to cry. How</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
could I have doubted her?</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
There were real tears in her eyes! The daisies</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
fell from her dress, and if</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
at that moment</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
she'd cracked an egg in a bowl,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
the bowl would have filled with light. If</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
there is a God, why not</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
this violent froth, this</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
huge chiffon scarf</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
of pressure under water under her</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
white sandals in July?</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The baby was asleep, still sucking, in my arms, a lazy</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
wand of sun moved</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
back and forth across his brow. I heard a girl's laughter</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
in the parking lot, soft</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
and wild as</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
the last note of "Jacob's Ladder"</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
played by the children's handbell choir.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I turned around.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
It had been watching me. Or him. Or both of us.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>Good beast</i>, I whispered to it</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
facetiously under my breath.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
It took, in our direction,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
one</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
slow and shaggy step.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Bike Ride with Older Boys</h3>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The one I didn't go on.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I was thirteen,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
and they were older.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I'd met them at the public pool. I must</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
have given them my number. I'm sure</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I'd given them my number,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
knowing the girl I was...</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
It was summer. My afternoons</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
were made of time and vinyl.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
My mother worked,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
but I had a bike. They wanted</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
to go for a ride.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Just me and them. I said</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
okay fine, I'd</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
meet them at the Stop-N-Go</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
at four o'clock.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
And then I didn't show.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I have been given a little gift - </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
something sweet</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
and inexpensive, something</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I never worked or asked or said</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
thank you for, most</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
days not aware</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
of what I have been given, or what I missed - </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
because it's that, too, isn't it?</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I never saw those boys again.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I'm not as dumb </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
as they think I am</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
but neither am I wise. Perhaps</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
it is the best</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
afternoon of my life. Two</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
cute and older bys</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
pedaling beside me - respectful, awed. When we</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
turn down my street, the other girls see me...</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Everything as I imagined it would be.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Or, I am in a vacant field. When I</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
stand up again, there are bits of glass and gravel</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
ground into my knees.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I will never love myself again.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Who knew then</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
that someday I would be</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
thirty-seven, wiping</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
crumbs off the kitchen table with a sponge, remembering</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
them, thinking</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
of this - </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
those boys still waiting</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
outside the Stop-N-Go, smoking</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
cigarettes, growing older.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Green Bicycle</h3>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
There it is on the horizon, wavering.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
There it goes, disappearing, into space.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
My father hears sounds in the basement.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
He goes downstairs in his underwear, a seventy-</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
year-old man in the static of night and rain.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The wall's caved in. He turns</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
and climbs the stairs again.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
No trouble, no illumination.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I guess God likes it that way.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
But the foundation of my father's </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
house has collapsed</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
and the insurance company won't pay</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
and here we stand this afternoon</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
stupefied in our wet shoes.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
No enemies, no friends.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Without the middle, no beginning or end.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
If the phone doesn't ring, if the thing never breaks...</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The world says, <i>Give me</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>more of yourself than you can spare</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>and I'll take you to a strange</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>city, drop you off downtown, come</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>to pick you up a little later, greatly changed</i>.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Once, an old man</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
sat down beside me on a park bench.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
He said he was from Ireland.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
There were thistles</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
in the wastefield beside the pond, pre-</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
historic in their silence, their</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
shapes, their faith. My bike</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
was green, and new, and mine. I owned</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
the most beautiful bike I'd ever seen, and</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
rode it, watching</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
myself ride it</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
like a prepubescent ghost</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
with long soft hair</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
into the supermarket's plate-glass window.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
It had gotten me to the place</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I was, which was, perhaps, farther</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
than I ever should have been.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
He put his hand on my hand, leaned</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
over and tried to kiss me on the lips.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>Oh, no</i>, I said - got up, ran, never looked back. But</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Today I would ask that old man, <i>What about all tha</i>t?</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The turtles were paddleing on the pond's smooth murk,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
poking up their faces for a better look.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The thistles made their hushes</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
in the breezes. <i>Tell me, kiss me, Old One. This</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>time it'll be</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>our little secret</i>.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Although, that time, thrilled with my</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
first horror, riding my bike home</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I stopped</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
over and over to tell this story</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
to everyone I knew,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
and my father, a very young man,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
came down there looking for you.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
Velomannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11735152500677012292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423547439007971594.post-58596357138454852232017-07-31T13:59:00.005-07:002017-07-31T14:01:06.699-07:00Fragments<h2>
Fragments</h2>
(Against September 11, 2001)<br />
<br />
<h4>
by Brendan Galvin</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b>1.</b></div>
He breezed past me on a bike so thin<br />
it looked bulletproof, another spandex<br />
superhero, I thought, until he came back<br />
slowly, sagging and loud, both hands<br />
on the grips, talking to nobody<br />
on this road given over to birdsong.<br />
Both towers? He was almost screaming now.<br />
Both? Another vacationer losing<br />
his mind at his leisure, until I saw<br />
the headphone clamped to his helmet.<br />
<br />Velomannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11735152500677012292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423547439007971594.post-23837113493831233212017-07-03T12:44:00.000-07:002017-07-03T12:53:17.353-07:00From "Song For My Father"<h3>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">(<i>Sometimes you could be</i>)</span></h3>
<b>by Yusef Komunyakaa</b><br />
<br />
Sometimes you could be<br />
That man on a red bicycle,<br />
With me on the handlebars,<br />
Just rolling along a country road<br />
On the edge of July, honeysuckle<br />
Lit with mosquito hawks.<br />
We rode from under the shady<br />
Overhang, back into sunlight.<br />
The day bounced off car hoods<br />
As the heat & stinking exhaust<br />
Brushed against us like a dragon's<br />
Roar, nudging the bike with a tremor,<br />
But you steered us through the flowering<br />
Dogwood like a thread of blood.<br />
<br />
This is one stanza of a longer poem about his father, and their complicated relationship. The whole thing is <a href="http://dshooker.tumblr.com/post/115897905906/songs-of-my-father-by-yusef-komunyakaa">here</a> and well worth reading. The poem makes me realize that for nearly all of us, learning to ride and our earliest bicycle experiences are also crucial Father experiences and among the lessons we learn in what a father is.Velomannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11735152500677012292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423547439007971594.post-71742961066120954652017-06-29T13:06:00.001-07:002017-07-03T12:46:40.014-07:00The Bicycle Leaning Up Against the WallI'm discovering bicycles at the edge of the picture. Bicycles among the collection of props, not even in focus enough to be minor characters, nearly glanced over. But if it's true that poetry is language distilled to what is essential, and the bicycle made the cut, then its evocative presence speaks of intent. Even at rest, the bicycle is symbol.<br />
<div>
Here are two poems where the bicycle is metaphor for what remains when the distillation is complete.</div>
<h3>
<br />Self-Portrait as the Bootblack in Daguerre's Boulevard du Temple</h3>
<h4>
by Robin Coste Lewis</h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
(An erasure of Grant Allen's Recalled to Life)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I don't believe</div>
<div>
I thought</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
or gave names</div>
<div>
in any known language</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I spoke </div>
<div>
of myself always</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
in the third person.</div>
<div>
What led up to it,</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I hadn't the faintest idea.</div>
<div>
I only knew the Event</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
itself took place. Constant</div>
<div>
discrepancies. To throw them</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
off, I laughed,</div>
<div>
talked--all games</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
and amusements--to escape</div>
<div>
from the burden of my own</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
internal history.</div>
<div>
But I was there</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
trying for once</div>
<div>
to see you,</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
longed so</div>
<div>
to see you.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I might meet you</div>
<div>
in the street:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
a bicycle leaning</div>
<div>
up against the wall</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
by the window. Rendered</div>
<div>
laws of my country</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
played before my face.</div>
<div>
Historical, two-souled,</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
forgotten, unknown</div>
<div>
freaks of memory.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The matter of debts,</div>
<div>
the violent death</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
of a near relation,</div>
<div>
and all landing</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
at the faintest conception.</div>
<div>
Dark. Blue. And then.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
All I can remember</div>
<div>
is when I saw you.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It was you</div>
<div>
or anyone else.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The shot</div>
<div>
seemed to end</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
all. It belongs</div>
<div>
to the new world:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
the Present</div>
<div>
all entangled, unable</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
to move. Everything </div>
<div>
turned round</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
and looked</div>
<div>
at you.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Robin Coste Lewis won the National Book Award for poetry in 2015 for her book <i>Voyage of the Sable Venus</i>. Below is Daguerre's photograph referenced in the title. It dates from 1838 and is believed to be the first photograph that captures the image of a person.</div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_Vz6zadfolM/WVVZniI2dAI/AAAAAAAAKQg/dhZag4ESm506C9Mx2DgktQxaXUV1EIalgCLcBGAs/s1600/time-100-influential-photos-louis-daguerre-boulevard-du-temple-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="891" height="229" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_Vz6zadfolM/WVVZniI2dAI/AAAAAAAAKQg/dhZag4ESm506C9Mx2DgktQxaXUV1EIalgCLcBGAs/s320/time-100-influential-photos-louis-daguerre-boulevard-du-temple-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Forgetfulness</h3>
<h4 style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
by Billy Collins</h4>
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<br /></div>
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The name of the author is the first to go</div>
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followed obediently by the title, the plot,</div>
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the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of,</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye,</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Whatever it is you are struggling to remember</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,</div>
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not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
It has floated away down a dark mythological river</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
whose name begins with an <i>L</i> as far as you can recall,</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.</div>
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<br /></div>
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No wonder you rise in the middle of the night</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.</div>
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No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Velomannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11735152500677012292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423547439007971594.post-49988958569388940712017-01-08T12:28:00.000-08:002017-01-08T12:28:16.604-08:00<h2 style="background-color: #f6f5f4; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(80, 80, 80) !important; font-family: Georgia, sans-serif !important; font-stretch: normal !important; line-height: 24px !important; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: baseline;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Biking To The George Washington Bridge</span></b></h2>
<h3 style="background-color: #f6f5f4; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(80, 80, 80) !important; font-family: Georgia, sans-serif !important; font-stretch: normal !important; line-height: 24px !important; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-size: small;">by Alicia Ostriker</span></h3>
<div style="background-color: #f6f5f4; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(80, 80, 80) !important; font-family: Georgia, sans-serif !important; font-size: 16px !important; font-stretch: normal !important; line-height: 24px !important; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: #f6f5f4; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(80, 80, 80) !important; font-family: Georgia, sans-serif !important; font-stretch: normal !important; line-height: 24px !important; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: baseline;">
<b>It sweeps away depression and today<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />you can’t tell the heaped pin-white<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />cherry blossoms abloom along<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Riverside Drive from the clouds above<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />it is all kerfluffle, all moisture and light and so<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />into the wind I go<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />past Riverside Church and the Fairway<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Market, past the water treatment plant<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />and in the dusky triangle below<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />a hulk of rusted railroad bed<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />a single hooded boy is shooting hoops</b></div>
<div style="background-color: #f6f5f4; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(80, 80, 80) !important; font-family: Georgia, sans-serif !important; font-stretch: normal !important; line-height: 24px !important; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: #f6f5f4; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(80, 80, 80) !important; font-family: Georgia, sans-serif !important; font-stretch: normal !important; line-height: 24px !important; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: baseline;">
<b>It’s ten minutes from here to the giant bridge<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />men’s engineering astride the sky heroic<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />an animal roar of motors on it<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />the little red lighthouse at its foot<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />big brother befriending little brother<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />in the famous children’s story<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />eight minutes back with the wind behind me<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />passing the boy there alone shooting<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />his hoops in the gloom</b></div>
<div style="background-color: #f6f5f4; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(80, 80, 80) !important; font-family: Georgia, sans-serif !important; font-stretch: normal !important; line-height: 24px !important; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: #f6f5f4; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(80, 80, 80) !important; font-family: Georgia, sans-serif !important; font-stretch: normal !important; line-height: 24px !important; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: baseline;">
<b>A neighborhood committee<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />must have said that space<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />should be used for something recreational<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />a mayor’s aide must have said okay<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />so they put up basketball and handball courts<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />and if it were a painting or a photo<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />you would call it American loneliness</b></div>
<div style="background-color: #f6f5f4; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(80, 80, 80) !important; font-family: Georgia, sans-serif !important; font-size: 16px !important; font-stretch: normal !important; line-height: 24px !important; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: #f6f5f4; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(80, 80, 80) !important; font-stretch: normal !important; line-height: 24px !important; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">This was the Poem-a-Day for January 2, 2017, hosted by Poet.org</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">About the poem, the author said this:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">“Biking to the bridge is one of my favorite activities since becoming a permanent New York City resident for the first time since I was eighteen. The bike path has the Hudson River on one side, traffic on the other, and I can do the ride in an hour door to door. If the poem captures both the energy of the city and the sorrow and loneliness threading through it, I’ll be satisfied.”</span></span></div>
Velomannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11735152500677012292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423547439007971594.post-76920859975483658462016-07-21T12:19:00.001-07:002016-07-21T12:19:29.692-07:00Lament by Gregory Orr<h2>
<span style="font-size: large;">Lament</span></h2>
<h4>
by <b>Gregory Orr</b></h4>
I thought of you<br />
as I drove past<br />
the girl kneeling<br />
on the verge<br />
by her upside-down<br />
bicycle<br />
<br />
I know<br />
she was only<br />
fixing the chain<br />
but for one moment<br />
I saw her playing<br />
a round harp<br />
(and I thought of you<br />
as I drove past).<br />
<br />
There on the highway's<br />
edge where gusts<br />
from passing cars<br />
whipped the grass<br />
like wind off the sea<br />
and she was kneeling,<br />
her arms moving<br />
among the metal spokes<br />
plucking from them<br />
a music lost<br />
in the louder<br />
impersonal sound<br />
of traffic (and I thought<br />
of you<br />
as I drove past).<br />
<br />
The girl kneeling<br />
on the verge,<br />
adjusting the loop<br />
of metal links<br />
that would propel her<br />
into the future,<br />
but also playing<br />
(and I thought of you<br />
as I drove past)<br />
a round harp<br />
on a desolate coast.<br />
<br />
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<br />Velomannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11735152500677012292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423547439007971594.post-60553012102539609372016-06-22T14:05:00.001-07:002016-06-22T14:42:17.142-07:00Two by Grace Paley<h3>
<img src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1312000993l/133619.jpg" /></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Before reading this collection I was mostly unfamiliar with Grace Paley's poetry. There's a lot of hard-earned wisdom in her work. </span></span>The bike is at the periphery in these two poems, as a fit metaphor in the first and a point of perspective in the second.<br />
<div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></div>
<h3>
<b><span style="font-size: large;">A woman invented fire</span></b></h3>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">A woman invented fire and called it</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> the wheel</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Was it because the sun is round</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> I saw the round sun bleeding to sky</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">And fire rolls across the field</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> from forest to treetop</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">It leaps like a bike with a wild boy riding it</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">oh she said</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> see the orange wheel of heat</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">light that took me from the</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> window of my mother's home</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">to home in the evening</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<h3>
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Having Arrived by Bike at Battery Park</span></b></h3>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I thought I would</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">sit down at one of those park department tables</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">and write a poem honoring </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">the occasion which is May 25th</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Evelyn my best friend's birthday</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">and Willy Langbauer's birthday</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Day! I love you for your delicacy</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">in appearing after so many years </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">as an afternoon in Battery Park right</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">on the curved water</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">where Manhattan was beached</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">At once arrows</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">straight as Broadway were driven</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">into the great Indian heart</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Then we came from the east</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">seasick and safe the</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">white tormented people</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">grew fat in the </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">blood of that wound</span><br />
<br />
<br />Velomannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11735152500677012292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423547439007971594.post-28746067729633196872015-07-08T09:52:00.002-07:002015-07-08T09:54:08.881-07:00Two by Billy Collins<img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51O3keA6%2BhL._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" /><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-size: large;">January In Paris</span></b><br />
<br />
<i>Poems are never completed - they are</i><br />
<i>only abandoned</i><br />
- Paul Valéry<br />
<br />
That winter I had nothing to do<br />
but tend the kettle in my shuttered room<br />
on the top floor of a pensione near a cemetery,<br />
<br />
but I would sometimes descend the stairs,<br />
unlock my bicycle, and pedal along the cold city streets<br />
often turning from a wide boulevard<br />
down a narrow side street<br />
bearing the name of an obscure patriot.<br />
<br />
I followed a few private rules,<br />
never crossing a bridge without stopping<br />
mid-point to lean my bike on the railing<br />
and observe the flow of the river below<br />
as I tried to better understand the French.<br />
<br />
In my pale coat and my Basque cap<br />
I pedaled past the windows of a patisserie<br />
or sat up tall in the seat, arms folded,<br />
and clicked downhill filling my nose with winter air.<br />
<br />
I would see beggars and street cleaners<br />
in their bright uniforms, and sometimes<br />
I would see the poems of Valéry,<br />
the ones he never finished but abandoned,<br />
wandering the streets of the city half-clothed.<br />
<br />
Most of them needed only a final line<br />
or two, a little verbal flourish at the end,<br />
but whenever I approached,<br />
they would retreat from their ashcan fires<br />
into the shadows - thin specters of incompletion.<br />
<br />
forsaken for so many long decades<br />
how could they ever trust another man with a pen?<br />
<br />
I came across the one I wanted to tell you about<br />
sitting with a glass of rosé at a café table -<br />
beautiful, emaciated, unfinished,<br />
cruelly abandoned with a flick of panache<br />
<br />
by Monsieur Paul Valéry himself,<br />
big fish in the school of Symbolism<br />
and for as time president of the Committee of Arts and Letters<br />
of the League of Nations if you please.<br />
<br />
Never mind how I got her out of the café,<br />
past the concierge and up the flight of stairs -<br />
remember that Paris is the capital of public kissing.<br />
<br />
And never mind the holding and the pressing.<br />
It is enough to know that I moved my pen<br />
in such a way as to bring her to completion,<br />
<br />
a simple, final stanza, which ended,<br />
as this poem will, with the image<br />
of a gorgeous orphan lying on a rumpled bed,<br />
her large eyes closed,<br />
a painting of cows in a valley over her head,<br />
<br />
and off to the side, me in a window seat<br />
blowing smoke from a cigarette at dawn.<br />
<br />
<b>Billy Collins</b><br />
<br />
from <i><u>Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems</u></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">Isn't it best and right to explore every new lace by bike? And who hasn't dreamed of living for a time in the City of Light?</span><br />
<i><u><br /></u></i>
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Cemetery Ride</span></b><br />
<br />
My new copper-colored bicycle<br />
is looking pretty fine under a blue sky<br />
as I pedal along one of the sandy paths<br />
in the Palm Cemetery here in Florida,<br />
<br />
Wheeling past the headstones of the Lyons,<br />
the Campbells, the Dunlaps, and the Davenports,<br />
Arthur and Ethel, who outlived him by 11 years<br />
I slow down even more to notice,<br />
<br />
but not so much as to fall sideways on the ground.<br />
And here's a guy named Happy Grant<br />
next to his wife Jean in their endless bed.<br />
Annie Sue Sims is right there and sounds<br />
<br />
a lot more fun than Theodosia S. Hawley.<br />
And good afternoon, Emily Polasek<br />
and to you too, George and Jane Cooper,<br />
facing each other in profile, two sides of a coin.<br />
<br />
I wish I could take you all for a ride<br />
in my wire basket on this glorious April day,<br />
not a thing as simple as your name, Bill Smith,<br />
even trickier than Clarence Augustus Coddington.<br />
<br />
Then how about just you, Enid Parker?<br />
Would you like to gather up your voluminous skirts<br />
and ride side-saddle on the crossbar<br />
and tell me what happened between 1863 and 1931?<br />
<br />
I'll even let you ring the silver bell.<br />
But if you're not ready, I can always ask<br />
Mary Brennan to rise from her long sleep<br />
beneath the swaying gray beards of Spanish moss<br />
<br />
and ride with me along these halls of the dead<br />
so I can listen to her strange laughter<br />
as some crows flap overhead in the blue<br />
and the spokes of my wheels catch the dazzling sun.<br />
<br />
<b>Billy Collins</b><br />
<br />
from <i><u>Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems</u></i><br />
<i><u><br /></u></i>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Again a cemetery. Billy Collins recently, like the poet Mary Oliver, relocated from the Northeast to Florida. It's good to know he also rides with a basket and a bell.</span><br />
<div>
<i><u><br /></u></i></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />Velomannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11735152500677012292noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3423547439007971594.post-79468157152935432792012-10-27T14:56:00.000-07:002012-10-27T14:56:09.134-07:00Chain Heart<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Velomannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11735152500677012292noreply@blogger.com0