"bicyclists" poems
the cab drivers always look hopeful
and the bicyclists always seem scared
but it feels like my ribcage birdhouse could stay
it’s my version of home that lives in my chest
past the honor of winters plaid sleeves and silver glasses
it’s room for just me and my clothespin wrists fold up to fit inside
and my braids tickle my nose while i’m there
i can get anywhere from there
and it’s exactly where i always return
there’s a dinosaur on the corner of my favorite place
and all his friends remind me to stay happy
as they stand by and good bye the places i need to go
and i walk up the thousand and six stairs to the top
more alone than i wanted to be
and i am quiet
and i listened but that was the day that the city shut up
and i’m always looking for motorcycles out of the corner of my eye because you pause conversation to watch them fly by
and i know for a moment there your head gets lost
just exactly where you like it
or at least i think you like it
Jul 10, 2014
Jul 10, 2014 at 11:59 PM UTC
-
we used to play a game, you and i:
we'd take the passing faces of pedestrians,
and bicyclists, businessmen and bikers,
hell, even that one elderly lady with fewer teeth
than stripes earned in strife, who stopped
only to inquire after where to buy a pack of smokes,
up the street, you told her, up past city hall, at bonanza,
and then a boy struck me silent
with the light off the studs on his jacket
we'd take their faces and give them
the most fantastic back-stories, ones we wished
someday we could tell our grandchildren,
or children, or even settle for a stranger on the street
to bear as some sort of unofficial witness to our lives
we've finally found definition, the illusion anyways,
we have evolved; we still like pokemon,
but we dress nicely now
needless to say,
we don't play that game anymore.
-
Feb 12, 2013
Feb 12, 2013 at 9:47 PM UTC
Before the coma of wings and football,
invades my nation's soul.
by the East River will I perambulate
each figure on the walk drawn, that is me,
chatting to the gulls re the river's latest delicacies,
praying the bicyclists, on my body, have mercies,
but I will all the while be silently recording poems,
to tribute the international nation of poets and poetry
Feb 2, 2014
Feb 2, 2014 at 12:21 PM UTC
You don't look a day older than bad manners
Remember to let people off the Train first.
Old fashion common sense has gone,
we are generating our everyday Cleopatra
where the private is as imperative as the public persona ,
unbeknown nail polish is on a reconnaissance mission
for blase solvent effects,
and as for Gentleman I cannot think of a
suitable Mass observation survey yet,
but if i did,
there wouldn't be enough Stradivarius volins to avail.
Note too how bus drivers aren't generally slow
and bicyclists are veering militant
driving instructors take chances through the red lights,
city life is
not necessarily construed as a public safety issue,
but everything is considered less relevant
in the pursuit of balanced manners.
Nov 24, 2012
Nov 24, 2012 at 3:57 PM UTC
I'm dressed in blue and green today,
the colors of the mighty sea;
the color of the earth and sky,
flow in my veins through me.
Bicyclists climb distant hills,
'neath clouds of silver-grey:
bright dots among the landscape,
pedaling their hearts away.
I've never seen the grass this high,
nor so many shrubs in bloom;
Queen Anne's lace, lupine flowers,
dance in a breezy tune.
The monsoon rains have come,
with all it's frightful power;
with hard and driving force,
instead of just a shower.
Half a year's total comes quite fast,
flash flooding in dry creeks;
but nothing escapes water,
as it's own level it soon seeks.
Then the sun regains its throne,
once more, the sunny reign;
dispelling all dark clouds,
over shadowed plain.
Sep 7, 2014
Sep 7, 2014 at 8:37 PM UTC
Two Bicyclists
At Mullan and Reserve in Missoula, Montana
a bike leaned crumpled on a cop’s waxed hood
As two miles up the road an 18-wheeler
Shuddered with its engine’s throbs
Hitching in the driver’s chest, his head
in his hands, “The rider is dead.”
*
Driving by in rapid succession these scenes added up to an awful conclusion
Do you remember, Alexis? The way we gasped, the moment of realization,
the awful knowledge that this bicyclist had slipped beneath those rear tires
swinging out wide, his chest crushed and heart fluttering a bird’s goodbye
too late at night to be out of bed beneath those wheels, perhaps the same
Rider I’d found five years before, blind-drunk and head over handlebars
Crashed with his legs wound like bone shoelaces in the pedal and frame
the widening puddle of ***** the blood seeping from his face, his hollow
cheeks his refusal to wake, his fear of an ambulance and my slow waking
to the fact he didn’t want police because he was higher than God.
Screamed in his ear time and again, as if even if he’d died I could bring him back
through my sheer desperation; as if I could stave off inevitability with will; as if
any one of us could hope to battle God, the end, the fragile frames of bone and
bicycle ****** beneath this parade of wheels. No. No. No. But yes, he did wake
slurring “No” to the ambulance, “No” to the whole scene, as if
His denial could act as time machine, he could fight against the present just
by wishing for the past, wishing hard enough. And I know the feeling, I know
it well, every hangover day praying to the Santa Claus god “I’ll do better,
I swear.” This wishing gets us nowhere, but it’s easy to philosophize when
it’s someone else’s ribs cracking. Oh, wasted bird, fly away home.
Ross Robbins
September 2011
Sep 24, 2011
Sep 24, 2011 at 11:50 PM UTC
Cashier’s line, foot tapping, texting, heavy sigh
The steady beep of the checkout
The kid in the baseball cap in front of me
His headphones don’t contain the music
“I don’t wanna be a solider mamma, I don’t wanna die”
The bus whines as the light shifts from yellow to red
A woman coughs, violently choking on years of tar, she looks around anxiously
And rights herself with a casual flick of her cigarette
A couple briefcases walk by, donning blazers and red ties
“Ya gotta be the best if ya wanna make it there. Brilliant! Boom boom boom!”
A woman sits inside a cafe, the spot where people do their people watching
Instead her infant captures her attention, cooing at the pink bundle in the stroller
“Yes you are the cuuutest little thing aren’t you, aren’t you?”
A man flicks his wrist to glimpse the time while he pumps gas
Silent, wanting to be elsewhere, that’s why he’s filling up his tank
A swarm of tourists, each waiting for the others to advance so that they might ****** the prime spot for a photograph
Their voices melt into one excited static
Cars honking at bicyclists and bicyclists yelling at pedestrians who yell at bicyclists
The river flowing quickly beneath my feet planted on the bridge
The Earth alive, rotating beneath the river
The Earth hurtling through the galaxy, through the universe
A passerby scolds me for not moving
Hurrying along
Jun 7, 2013
Jun 7, 2013 at 3:08 PM UTC
I'm always amazed, at the audacity
of politicians, and twisted fools
creating what they think we need
like a bunch of useless tools
Traffic is a problem, just about, everywhere
here in Austin town, here's how they would repair
More bicycle stations, *** is what I said
how will that relieve the stress'
and alleviate, traffic woes within our head?
People move here, at well over 100, every day
they all have cars, that they put on the road
getting in the way
So the perfect solution, that our Council will expound
is put more bikes in proximity
that's how we'll get around
I'll admit, that I don't vote
participate in government
the point seems moot and rote
my monies, always been misspent
If we lived in Europe, where it's been for many years
I wouldn't fear for bicyclists, like I do right here
The logic escapes me, and builds upon my doubts
are they paying for our bicycles, so we can get about?
paying for insurance, when some car hits, and knocks us out?
Jun 23, 2017
Jun 23, 2017 at 11:49 AM UTC
wiping the outside off my face with a soapy tissue,
I wash my hair,
get dressed
and head to dinner.
coffee and the smell of cigarettes
from an European couple at the next table,
I am letting myself have alone time.
not writing much about anything,
only occasional "i'm here"s
and "i'm there"s
in my notebook.
waiting for the cab at an empty-ish street
of returning bicyclists and slow cart-pullers,
I felt the ocean crashing against the insides of me.
just me here,
and red car-lights
reflecting in my eyes.
returning to nothing in particular.
taking off my shoes,
my bracelet,
my shirt;
i'm wiping the outside
off my face.
with my feet up on a glass table
in nothing
but a necklace I know I will struggle to unclasp,
i'm looking at the streetlights in the city from this big hotelroom window; thinking
of asking for another chocolate-coffee for one.
May 12, 2018
May 12, 2018 at 5:17 PM UTC