And so it turns from sweet to sour
And - worse than this -
No taste at all as dry grass trodden
Brown and flat inconsequential, blown
And underfoot
As our paces walk away from each
Until the sound is gone.

Now - saved by patterns rhythms lines
And forms of seeing that can find a path
To that surprising place of rightness in
Sudden sight of you again
Across the crowded years

Where all the lost unspoken words
Can sound anew.

She just could not believe that she had come
To this

                                        Again

He had  said – Come on – you used to like this
Just for me – and us – it might be good.

- Try
- Please

For me.

Yes – for him.
                                            Again.

So on this chilly day:
Awkward helmet boots and fumbly gloves.
Cold and fear and knees near ears
(The pillion's lot on sports machines.
...and he wouldn't buy the chop...)

They were off, and now she hoped that was not a pun.
She did her best not to wobble and resisted the temptation to put her feet down when they stopped. Ungainly awful Stop Wait, Jerky Action.
An old film forced to watch.  
Miserable claustrophobia in  traffic queues, between a fuel tanker and a hearse.
Hot foul breath of diesel smoke.
  
She felt sick.  
She wanted out.

[The World convulsed, dissolved reformed
Things changed for her for once
For all]



The slipstream coming off the curved bubble above the glowing clocks buffeted her head with a roaring chaos that added to wild riot.  She hooked the next gear and opened the throttle wider.   The determined act of twisting the grip brought her body lower to lie on the tank, and her heart closer to the heart of the engine's breathing fiery centre.   A green high-sided truck disappeared over her shoulder into into her past: into non-existence.  And in front she knew - a climbing curve left and a stiff side wind.   She relished the anticipation of the change, getting ready to shift her weight, her eyes burning up the road - fixing the aiming point at the apex of the bend. Now! - the bike eased off the vertical, and healed into the challenge of a new world order of curve and cross winds.    
An alliance of forces at the Edge:  United,
Poised, and aimed by thought and skill -  the creation and flex of a true sword.    

And the noise!  

The noise was an overwhelming but understood cacophony – the packed high-RPM music of the Engine - loud and hard.  
The blaring exhaust and the tyre roar and the wind...
Coming at her from the left now.  She bucked and weaved a little with road bumps and sideways forces - a muscular fish in a torrent - but these were trivial disturbances.  
Together they were the embodiment of an Act of Will and Purpose -
THIS course THIS speed.  
She wanted more.  

More power, more speed - so more lean to hold it
With now a less than perfect gear change in the mix.  
A sudden bump absorbed by the suspension, and the left hand wing mirror blazes with a shower of sparks from the grounded footpeg arcing back into the dusk.  The rear tyre briefly spins in mid air – the engine screaming to the rev limiter - and returns to tarmac with a zwip.    A rictus of mortality  and terror shudder the bike -
A whiff of Death that lets her live.
This time.

They were through the moment.  

And she had kept the throttle wide.


Courage.  

No substitute. And its sometime close friend -

Instinct.

You live by them together or not at all.  

This curve was ending, and the speed extreme
Almost – Supernatural.

Difficult to hold her head forward against
The flat of the wind's hand held up in her way:
“An end to your defiance!”  

But she was not to be turned aside.   The landscape could only be seen clearly about a mile ahead - All else was pulsing blur:  
An unwinding ribbon of dark green and blue and orange - like a star field at jump to light speed.  But the moment held forever visceral –  remembered forever.       She thought her heart would burst with the joy of being alive on this edge -  
At this time  
Of all time.  

She knew -

There would be more curves and cross-winds
But Now - she was Up Front, In Charge
and,  BY GOD she shouted with the wind
SHE WAS GOING FOR IT!

You did not want him to touch you at first
But he did anyway
Held you so your feet were off the ground
(put me down you thought)

But there was something in his lift
The easy, irritating way almost
He did it to you
Like you had no substance

But when he put you down and
Looked long
You wished
-and you were -

Still up there.

Light and dark and drills and drainrods
In several windows where a wind a move
A night shale fall

Once was.

Hovering hooked hands
Hating the alliteration as much as
Unwanted rhyme.

Too inward now
So go out to the different dark
I meant dark only
Dark

And a voice from another room heard not heard
An explanation of something I should think
But moving on as News people say
We hear the distant vehicle with a purposing
Of sorts

And nearer out of sorts a startled cat with clearer explanations
Than the laugh that reassures
From the other room

And upstairs notebooks lying underbed
Incomprehensibly heavy with the tortuous oughts

Of ink.

Scotch at sundown.  Good cat on the chair,
And then green light I know
will be there for me in the bedroom.  Cars
And self mocking subjects with the fumes of sleep
not far away.  Paradoxically I think another drink will just allow the bottom of the page to become reachable...

What do the dots mean?  
“You know We know It's possible.  And maybe you can participate in this thought too.”  

Not wanting to carry on like a stony upward path near moors near Langsett.  
With a forgiving friend that runs as well.  
But not too well for me to fall behind in the chat chat chat of miles to go before I drink and miles to go before I drink....

A piece of bread to soak up spirits to their full height?
Not quite

And I'm always frowning always at the paper and at you
I do not mean to

You see?

The ****** rhymes they get in without me wanting (and also wanting)
The clever trite score of sound like sugar hit that ashames me after
Drinking down the self congratulation of a chime of words.


And there it is
The stone of end at the top and the last thing we might see

Before descent to all the rivers and the ferns and...

And words

I wish you could be here now
Waiting for the winter dawn
-too early yet -

Outside - cold black and thin treed
Hard by the Dark River

But here the glow touches each to each

You rise to draw a curtain slowly
- night clothes open softly to the screen -
And I am briefly jealous of Peter Mandleson.

And yet – I fear sometimes you do not know it
And then yet – maybe in the forgiving light of some days
Of some soft evenings
You do -
When the lilt and sway of easy nothing finds balance at the heart
Of everything
And all is possible, and time is kind.


2.
And then - a 'when',and an 'if', and a shattering of hard light
through cold glass, and
Out again
To weave another self - become the one that holds the stuff of others
and does the stuff
Out there.

- No one else to cope or conquer
All the 'I's' rest on you - you cannot rest.
- In the fever of the day's words and words and words....
While you – slightly apart even here,
Strive for stillness
And the steady smiling gaze that lights up
The unspoken words
Between.

3.
The wonder of it all
Searching out and up:
With much found already
Your blood and soul knowing, moving upwards through
The memories of silly shoves of playground fears and falls
Lighting them from within.
The Opening Flower - open hands and eyes for others
Others turning to look...

Gently walking with them pacing out their lives
They touch the lilt and lift
Of you.

You will give back their profound dance to their mind and eyes.
The Peripheral Vision – the little moving light that says –
listen to me
listen to me
This is your birthright -
Quietly saying – you are all power to embrace


And part

To wander in byways for all the simple certainties of drifting in the
Now:
All there is...

Now - To reach up wide and far through the thin bars
Feeling warm rain and hope and light.
The beautiful graceful stem and leafing of the logic:
Tell me who you are.

....

Maybe,

In the end,

“Drifting is an important value”

For you

Too!



- For S.
Christmas 2008