My legs burn, my teeth bite into chain-steel,
The lever of a radius - my wheel.
I am attached on many levels to allow
Acceleration and braking, only through pedals.
Life seems a fiery time-lapse of lights
As I feel evolved - my air is spiked.
The rush of risk, driving me to live, move.
Distilled liquor of Man's ingenuity propels me.
Tube, link, cog, chain, lock-ring, cork, alloy.
A bicycle Cossack charging the marauder, lines of
Barbarians keeping their metal defences high.
Red is blood. Green is grass. All new symbology lost.
I flow like water, mind at once empty
And full of flashing, raw animal intensity -
Sixth sense turned up to eleven
A roadblock turns and steps, I see it in slow-mo.
Harrods Hamleys tourist, an alien unprepared
I predict, see, smell and react - thinking for them, too.
Before I am ever registered, a shadow: I am gone
Trickled away through gnarled city fingers.
My strides geared by a loved machine
Into motion at once manic and serene.
Gritty, visceral yet wrapped in velvet cloth
Beauty, tradition, belonging and souplesse.
I am a working rider on a crest of euphoria.
A day-full of rain slides easily off my skin,
As limited others forget how waterproof they are
And deny gifts of movement and life. And riding.
Apr 30, 2016
Apr 30, 2016 at 4:14 PM UTC