Calm sleep day
Urban brick
Birdsong, windy leaves

Inexplicable bagpipes

Lift soul brave
Raw harsh demand
Rise, rise and stand
This is life and beauty

Silence
Wind
Leaves

Motorbike engine roar

You are selfish, shallow, adrenaline seeking. Blind, short sighted, borderline death seeking.

Thrill catching, leathers matching, fuel flowing, shallow breathing.
The release of control, self preservation is screaming.

Your intrigue for the wild has brought you here. In seeking proximate demise your intentions are clear.

However is there more, to his bottomless hole? More than adrenaline, flight, the search for extol?

Could there be meaning found where reasoning retires? Is there space in this world for simply following desires?

Vast I’m sure is your strength of intrigue. Or fear of what if, what next, what indeed. The roads may be littered, treacherous, packed. But what really matters when all what ifs are sacked?

It’s the smell of the air, the fumes, the tires. Enveloping you whole, until you retire.

No question of when, how or why. No pondering which, what, wondering eyes.

Pure pleasure, indeed, is what we seek. Here and now, not bitter or bleak.

An antidote to chaos, here we have found. Me and my bike, 3 feet from the ground.

X

I was dog tired. Just keeping my eyes open was tough. My timid body was drunk with fatigue. Staring for a whole day at a computer screen and typing as if in a trance, had left my mind blank. My skinny hands were frostbitten in the cheap artificial leather gloves, as they clung to the motorbike handles. My heart raced as I looked at the ominous black clouds.          I tried to focus on the gloomy scenery as my mind drifted in and out of my dream world. Winter had turned the green hedges into lifeless shapes with razor sharp thorns. Mud from previous vehicles had turned the hedges into the edges of a war zone. The trip felt endless as my threadbare tyres skated round the bends. After driving for a hour, the icy chill of the evening air had made me regret not putting on my old trusted army jacket. My rusty red Honda 500cc motor cross motorbike kept up its duel with the dirt road as its exhaust barked continuously. The beam of my headlights kept stabbing the gloomy sky.               With my frostbitten hand, I switched on my CD player, in a desperate effort to focus on the road. The words of Golden Earrings Radar Love pierced my eardrums  "...almost there, gotta keep cool". My goggles started to fog up as I echoed the lyrics. I started to breath shallowly like a chain smoker, to stop my goggles from frosting further. I had just became used to the soothing distraction, when the motorbike gave its last bark and gradually coasted to a stop. I got off my stead, with my joints feeling like a geriatric patient that had completed a rodeo. I surveyed the bust engine as my cursing breath formed little clouds in the gelid air. I dug around in my shabby jeans, whipped out my cellphone, only to discover that there was no reception. I salvaged my flashlight from the bikes saddlebag and popped a "Life Safer" sweet into my mouth. I realized that I had to walk to the nearest town.                 I started down the road, remembering my fathers reference to isolation, being between "hell and the hotel." My flashlight reminded me of load shedding and sudden darkness. As I walked past a small lake, the clouds parted, revealing  a crescent moon that hung in the air like a haunted vessel. The moon reflected in the lake, to a watery grave for the sailors. I got the eerie feeling as I walked, that someone or something was following me. I stopped and swallowed the stale cold coffee that was left in my hip-flask. The howling Arctic wind had ceased and I could hear my own heartbeat. Ledd Zeppelins Stairway to heaven started smoothly...

that black leather,
surrounding your waist,
back and shoulders,
all i want to do
is grip tight on it
and never let go,
as we are driving on this
old, used motorbike
without our helmets,
like we are just waiting,
and wanting our lives
to come to
an end,
thinking we are dangerous
and cool,
when we are just
young and reckless.