A bicycle is the most efficient transportation machine.  A little input and I’m gliding, moving a useful measurable distance but more than that. I like going fast enough so the wind in my ears is louder than my thoughts.  On a tough day I like riding until I can be grateful again; sometimes that takes a couple hours but every ride is a good ride.

My youth’s independence was a banana seat Huffy pulled from an under-appreciated pile of rust in the back of St. Vincent’s Thrift Shop.  No school bus meant riding to school, the first 45 minutes of every day in all weather. Afternoons were exploring detours; summers were expeditions to the city limits, sometimes beyond.  I needed an upgrade for high school; I found a spotless antique 3 speed Raleigh, the cultural English workhorse collecting dust in an unlikely garage for $50.

I kept it through two foster homes. The first one kept me busy with farm chores, but the second was back in town. There, I had the bike back, and as an aside, they had a phenomenally sophisticated wall sized sound system: reel-to-reel and amazing headphones. I would forget myself in records: Sgt. Peppers, Genesis, Yes, etc, and another favorite. Just a guitar and piano instrumental album with a simple melody called Bricklayer’s Beautiful Daughter. Something about that one song in particular I heard faint glimmerings of contentment that was denied to me.  I would replay it to cling to this hint of a simple happiness I didn’t understand; that if it was in the song, it was somewhere deep in me.
Without a car for 10 years, one used 10-speed or another got me to various eccentric jobs.  

Fast forward to the life-changer, after a divorce. Needing to reconnect with myself, I searched for a decent bike. I found it hanging dusty in the back of a cluttered boutique shop smelling of tire rubber, quiet with racers’ confidence. They had a Lemond thoroughbred on consignment, assembled custom 5 years earlier to race. It was slightly outdated, but a dent on the top tube put it out to pasture. It was steel though, so rideable enough for me.  My entire $300 savings and it was mine. Then I discovered the special pedals needed special shoes, so another month saving for those.  I wasn’t going to wear those silly spiderman outfits, until I started to ride more than 10 miles and my **** demanded it.  And those pockets in the back of the shirt were handy.  I met a friend who taught me how to draft: my skinny wheel a few inches behind the bike in front at 20 mph, to save precious energy in the slipstream. Truly dangerous, vulnerable, and effectively blinded; but he pointed at the ground with various hand signals to warn of upcoming road hazards. I was touched by this wordless language of trust and camaraderie. This innate concern is essential to the sport, even among competitors, so it seems to attract quality people I liked.  My new life expanded with friends.

I discovered biking exercise could stabilize the life-long effects of brain injury, lost some weight, grew stronger, and started setting goals.  First longer group rides, then a century (100 miles in one ride), then mountain biking: epic fun in nature, unadulterated happiness.  Then novice racing, then the next category up with a team, then a triathlon.  It became an admitted obsession but I won a pair of socks or bike parts every now and then.  Eventually tattooed two bike chains around my ankle, one twisted and the other broken.  I loved the lifestyle, and had truly reinvented and rediscovered myself.

A 500 mile ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles with fellow wounded veterans helped dissipate the old shame from the military.  I had joined the ride to raise money for a good cause.  I respected the program and knew personally that cycling had changed my life.  They turned out to be inspiring, helping me more than I could have helped them.  Some had only just started riding a bike for only a few weeks, some were amputees fit with special-made adapters on regular bikes, some had no legs using hand cycles.  They all joined on to the task of riding 500 miles. No one whined, and helping each other finish the day was the only goal.  While riding with them, I began to open up about my experience.  I found a few others who also had TBI, and we could laugh about similar mishaps.  The other veterans didn’t judge me about anything, like when I was injured, the nature of my disability, how much I did or didn’t accomplish. I had signed up just like them, had to recover back to a functioning life just like them.  It was the first time in my life that whole chapter in my life was accepted; I wasn't odd, and they helped close the shame on that old chapter.  (Thank you, R2R.)  The next year I took a 1500 mile self-supported bike trip through western mountain ranges with my husband and soulmate, whom I had met mt. biking.

There was one late Spring day, finally warm after a long winter, when I just wanted to ride for a few hours by myself.  No speedometer or training intervals, just enjoy the park road winding under the trees. I had downloaded some new music on the IPod, a sampler from the library.  I felt happy.  Life is Good.  Rounding a bend by the river, coasting through sunbeams sparkling the park’s peaceful road, my earphones unexpectedly played Bricklayer’s Beautiful Daughter.  I hadn’t heard that simple guitar tune in three decades.  My God, time suddenly disappeared.  I was right back in the forgotten foster home, listening for the faint silver threads of the contentment I was feeling at this very moment on the bike.  The full force of this sudden connection, the wholeness of the life and unity of myself in one epiphany, brought me to tears. I found myself pouring my heart into praying hang in there, girl, hang in there, you’ll find it and I felt my younger self hearing echoes of birds singing in new green leaves.

I am reading poems by Billy Collins:
AIMLESS LOVE, a retrospective,
A sampler, as it were
For the Books and Brew;
Our monthly selection.

Nine manly men
Meeting for monthly meals
And book-talk
And politics
And, of course, good beer.

They like nonfiction,
I like fiction.

Richard Hughes,
British writer of poems, short stories, novels and plays said:
“All nonfiction can do is answer questions;
It is fiction's business to ask them.”

Still, my repertoire has expanded:
Nike shoes.
Civil War.
Institutional racism.
Opioid addiction.
Rafting the Grand Canyon.
Climbing mountains.
With Baron Von Humboldt.

And now this:
Poetry.
Nine manly men
Reading poetry to each other
While sharing a meal,
One lovely poem after another.

You can't read a book of poetry
Like you consume other books,
Fiction or nonfiction.

The table of contents:
The lid of a box of exquisite truffles—
A map of pleasures contained within.
You look at the map,
And make a selection.

The caramel truffle
Is not the coffee truffle.

You look at the map,
Make a selection,
And bite!

The crusty chocolate cracks!
The darkness melts,
Floods your mouth with taste.

Then the rush of caramel!
Flavors, smells sloshing
Swooning with sensate memories.

What? Turn the page and read another?
Reach for the coffee truffle?

No. Linger with caramel;
Luxuriate on aftertaste.
Is that a note of citrus or salt?

I will enjoy my coffee truffle tomorrow.

We eat shawarma and we share da pizza
afterwards partying, never alone on dat gig
meet a *** just to bang her wit my homez
me salutin' to carlos, yep, it's like dat:

he be spending some time behind bars now
ain't no biggie, we rely on da boyz
neva had nuttin' but now we ******' top-modelz
as maxwell argued: "open your mouth, i'm gonna ***"

watch, how we double our profitz...
da hottest gang under da sun
once bonez said:" man, we be stars quite soon!"
and each memba represented his part

he told me: "sit down and write barz"
cause dem gangsterrappaz mostly be phony
we no lelleks, i got men behind me
187 street gang, sampler number four

watch america self destruct the movie part 2 (only available in txt version}

the players - you choose but you still won't know(god's cut only)

as Jesus -

Jesus -  2/1
White Jesus 1/1
Weird looking Jesus 100/1
Robin Williams 2/1
****** - 2/1
Bigfoot - 2/1
Trump - 2/1
Biden - 2/1
Henry Winkler - 2/1
any billionaire - void

as the false prophet

Jesus -  2/1
White Jesus 1/1
Weird looking Jesus 100/1
Robin Williams 2/1
****** - 2/1
Bigfoot - 2/1
Trump - 2/1
Biden - 2/1
Henry Winkler - 2/1
any evangelic - 1/100
dollar bill - 2/1
any billionaire 1/100
as God

Dave Chappelle - 1/50
Jesus -  2/1
White Jesus 1/1
Weird looking Jesus 100/1
Robin Williams 2/1
****** - 2/1
Bigfoot - 2/1
Trump - 2/1
Biden - 2/1
Henry Winkler - 2/1
any billionaire - void

as Beast(s)

all cryptids
flying monkeys
lizard people
android devices
apple devices

Come bring your sampler, and with art
          Draw in’t a wounded heart
          And dropping here and there:
Not that I think that any dart
          Can make your’s bleed a tear,
          Or pierce it anywhere;
Yet do it to this end: that I
                           May by
                      This secret see,
              Though you can make
That heart to bleed, yours ne’er will ache
                           For me.

Four Poems on the Tapestry Art of Jilly Edwards*

Yellow is the New Blue

From the train window
that yellow of summer
****-bright, and almost aromatic,
not a field colour in a fifties childhood
so we grew up without it you and I,
first curious at its occasional occurrence,
then somewhat overwhelmed
by its presence where pasture green
or golden wheat once was, and now this,
more than lemon and lemon-sharp too,
wonderfully colliding with any blue day
when the sky rests against a wolding sweep
of this crop the colour of daffodil.


Follow the Path to the Heart

Altar piece? But no, too small,
and there’s no God hiding there
under the table: this is on the wall.

Anyway, look at the panels here,
blue at the far end, surprising
but necessary, a clear

sea depth folding into itself a bare
surrounding whiteness of peace,
of supplication, a contemplative sampler

free from improving verse
or repetitious decoration.
It is all it is, even less.


Woolly Pictures and Plastic Boxes

I don’t do woolly pictures on the wall,
She said, and her son had smiled
in agreement. Long narrow strips instead,
She continued, rolled up to fit in a box
with tail-like braids sneaking out
and around and across and down
falling from a shelf or a window sill.

And those plastic (partitioned) boxes,
oohh! – I bought fifty wholesale from
Muji,  she exclaimed. I fill them
with moments, with evidence
of my journeying: always a railway ticket,
sometimes a torn wrapper stitched to mend,
then a tiny tapestry woven to fill one frame,
inevitably, a large-lettered cautionary word.

Standing on their sides my boxes
become rows of open windows,
a transparent gathering of memory,
a railway carriage of memorabilia.  
You can take them out, she said,
and put them back in a different way.
Memory is like that, the same trip
but the ordering altered:
there and back, back and there.


Ma

It’s a state of mind
Agnes talks about
and draws without a ruler,
a grid empty of everything
except the line, except a colour
all across and down
on *washi paper.

It’s space, you know,
a gap, a pause, an interval
or a consciousness of place,
a simultaneous awareness
of form and non-form,
an intensification of vision.

There it is on the wall.
This one, she points,
more blues than a lonely blue
ma gives shape to the whole,
my tapestry of negative space.

When I look at the sea
it’s all ma out there,
in the sparkle of reflections
on the cut-glass water,

where there is too much form
to hold against the heart,
where space is substance.

The Day does not begin without pain
It does not sneak about swiftly
It cracks
It tears
It breaks
I should know
I am the Sun
Every day I rise from the East
Every day returning from my nocturnal exile
Every day I must split the Moon's veil
So hastily thrown up
To block out the colors
Cutting through it brings me pain
But surely nowhere near the pain it brings her
We both cry out
Our screams lost in the sounds of birds chirping
Coffeemakers brewing
Cars and trucks and people rushing
The sounds of morning
Without me, they wouldn't know when to start.


If you watch, you will see
Set down your newspaper
Pull on your pants
Push aside your bacon and eggs
I'll show you how a real man starts the day.
It begins with the layers.
The top one still Black
The next, a deep Purple
After that, a sensuous Indigo
Below it, a pale jaundicised Yellow
Under this, Pink
But not a rosy clean pink
A sickly pink
A sickly pink
Do you understand?
A painful pink
Each layer grows lighter
Brighter with each passing second
Each painful second
Causing more pain than your human mind can comprehend
The sky has almost finished turning
Now I will attend to my mother, the Earth


I start with the Trees
Pulling away their cloaks
Ripping the darkness from them
Turning them from dark silhoettes
Back to their natural Crimson
Pumpkinesque
Saffronopal
Or just plain Green
Soon you can see everything
The grass
The houses
The streets
Soon you will see me
If I can bear the pain that long
But even if I can't,
I must.


Now the Clouds are Pinked
Dripping with that same awful, agonizing layer
Weighing them down
It will soon fade
They will be blank in no time
Free to sail the skies again
Where ever the wind takes them
The sky has gone from many layers to one
Blended like a paint sampler
You can see the Yellows
Greys
Whites
Lavenders
And that god-awful Pink again
Soon there will be only Blue
The most perfect Blue you ever saw
The Blue you see every day
Such a clean Blue
Pristine
And yet....


A boring Blue
Untainted
If you look at that Blue
Every day
At the Height of noon
When I am highest in the sky
Can you appreciate it?
Can you understand my pain?
Can you understand my sacrifice?
Our sacrifice?
For my lover, the Moon, suffers too
Is it possible for your puny mind
To wrap itself around the idea?
Of course not.


I'm not complaining
It's just, a little recognition would be nice
Or if you'd wake just a little earlier
And sit with me
Watch me
Stay with me a while.

They used to worship me, you know
They called me a god
Who rides a great golden chariot
Who lives in a great golden palace
They gave me names
Beautiful names
Names like Amen-Ra
Hyperion
Apollo
Powerful names
How can you argue with names like those?
Oho, but you're too wise for that now, aren't you?
You've evolved too far, right?
You're all so terribly advanced now, aren't you?
I'm only a giant ball of fire and gas
Just one star among trillions, eh?
Fools.
So smug in your humanity
But I am the Sun and I see all
You cannot hide your cruelty
Your selfishness
Your lack of regard for other humans
Humanity. Ha!
Well
We won't speak of that.

I'm not bitter
I would gladly go on like this
Will go on like this
For it is my cycle
And we must all follow our cycles
Over and over
And over again
No matter how much pain it brings us
Night and Day
Precipitation and Evaporation
Life and Death
Until the end of time
Even you, human
Oh, yes.
You too, have a cycle
You'll learn that soon enough
But in the meantime
Look to the East

Sensational curiosities of quarter-sized universes of human love and human flesh.
Gentle insane thoughtless violence cured in time's long sluice of betrayal,
Rancor, then betrayal, and then the frost. Never did I hear the twigget of the synthesizer max its flare.

Every mouth was a warship, the plumes coming up over the top of the spigot, sampler of the Neverspoke. Worships them, in the Hectares through the dross, the incumbent conflagration

Envelops life from venom thru a stra.  Into the hutch the creeper shakes, like the

take the freeway sampler for long trips to see your horrible family

110
710
405
5
5
405
710
5
101

I don't know how to heal, but I sure know what it's like to feel.
Been reeling for such a long time with nothing on the end of the hook.
Everything is wonderful in a fantasy world, narrated eloquently like a book.
But who took me away from completion? What's the reason?
It's no one's fault, I think far more than I have to.
Sometimes I feel confined within walls, and in my own head I get trapped too.
I am a hyper-sensitive being, and I'll admit that I often don't trust what my eyes are seeing.
I usually know what's pure, but sometimes it just helps to make sure.
I flee from the moment, free to hold it - an idea I water that grows into something beautiful.
I don't need to try to show you, but I feel dutiful.
If only it could reflect reality, instead of opposing ideas that seemingly try to battle me.
If anything I've hurt myself more than any one person can.
I still wonder what it is, that is, my "plan".
I cause actions that I retort with emotionally-driven reactions,
and the fact is I hurt on the inside mentally and physically on the daily.
I try to keep the demons out, but sometimes I feel they have a thing for me and don't want me to have a sense of liberation, to be free.
I feel for all you people and it ***** knowing we can't get along.
I wish things didn't always feel wrong. I try to go right but seem to veer left.
I am not ignorant to my actions and how they could inevitably create an untimely death.
We are all uncertain, and it's a part of life.
There are no worlds that exist without strife, but they are handled in a unique manner.
I want all of life, not just a platter sampler.
My heart keeps a beat, unsteady, and not always am I exactly ready for what's to come,
but I go with the flow and continuously row because tomorrow never knows.
My love goes out to you, unquestionably. This isn't just to one, but all of humanity, and more.
With that said, let's go. We have a universe of possibility to explore.

The soles of my sandaled feet
maneuver lumps of brick as if by rote
and I am compelled to face the square.

Almost noon on Sunday,
I seek the impromptu mall
of Tarot readers and caricaturists
where palmists merchant to St. Peter,
each an homilist to the choir of steel drums
tinkling near the alley.
Alternate drummers motion bills and coins
into the walled cache of a tattered suitcase.

Tall arched doors spill into
the welcoming flicker and scent of melting wax
as an older woman enters,
the heft of her rosary bending her
near genuflection.

Familiar passages resonate;
memories lead to Sacraments.
Questions filter through me like confessions,
and I note what lingers of my faith.

Still.

I feel too guilty for Communion.

Bless me Father, for I have sinned.
Even as I turn to You,
my right toe numbs
and my ear begins to itch.
My ******* constrict
and my throat presses into the wet.
Inject me, Father, with Noah's syringe –
the one that jazzed him
to build that floating zoo –
that I may track my path before the Rise.
Or, let me don Your priestly robes,
and turn some wine to Corpuscles
divined to see beyond my own plank
or preach the Beatitudes to yawning zealots.

Is there a mirror on that altar?

As the cathedral entrance closes,
I am who I am
—and I am not worthy—
standing my shadow's length
from the shallow steps.

Azaleas blooming at my back,
I remember when religion grew within my mind
fed weekly by carvings on a chalice
in a chapel on Esplanade left to nature post Katrina.

Spanish moss greys the white beard of God
where the dome of the fresco fractures.

Phalangeal hues of sun
eclipse the floating dust
from breaks in stained glass stations.

Masses of blackberry and kudzu
drape a pregnant mass
over the sculpted marble of the cross.

The chiseled palms of Christ extend as
ropes of growth unravel from His Torso

like a figment of my reconciliation.

Vines fall to form a brambled crown
atop a broken stone
between the great doors
where the Bible swells open.

A version of this poem has been previously published in the anthology Louisiana Inklings: A Literary Sampler (29 October 2013).

*"Sanctuary" was featured as Poem of the Day and  added to the Poetry Club on Scriggler.com

Afternoon Visit
A privilege to behold
Her story unfolds

A quilt drapes the bed
A sampler hangs over it
A labor of love

Her voice soft and low
From her heart's memory
She recalls her youth

By the candlelight
Her mother passed on to her
A lifelong career

A hand runs over it
Beautiful flawless stitches
Admiring her work

She listens closely
Each detail is memorized
To retell later

Endless needle ******
Hours spent diligently
Lessons everyday

Cotton wool velvet
Solids prints floral fabrics
Neatly on a shelf

Once powered by foot
Now idle covered in fine dust
A Singer treadle

Unfinished dress coat
Embracing a mannequin
Never to be worn

In a chair she sits
Her hands methodically stitch
Unseen material

She turns her head slightly
As she dismisses her guest
Good night Mom is heard

PMD 2~1~2016

swung pig weight around to inflict his ****-hardened demeanor onto the slaves who pay his pay; into the wondrous/wonderless fray...

The sun is so close

The Fahrenheit is
The energy is
The growth  between you and I both

The synergy is
The emptiness is no kin to me

I feel the space quite sensually
I appreciate the life that’s lent to me

I wasn’t giving the discipline to live a abstinence history

Without damper; look what the rain did to me.

Happy camper

Kinetic sampler

The Sol is adjacent to the soul

Is there a dome?
Is the light in or beside the body of the globe?

The opposing solstice
Where’s the sun? It’s so cold

The elements are so loud

All of my tears are in those clouds

My outbursts are disguised as thunderous sounds.

The sun is still young.

I have the sampler HOME SWEET HOME
I've heard the words. It's clear.
Heard many people say it,
And shed many a tear.
I've tasted sweetness in the world,
Made many people dear
I've tried to make do on this earth
But my home isn't here.

I've heard refrains of Homeworld
I've been before its breeze,
The symphonic swelling peaks of hope
Well beyond the trees.
Will you help me get a glimpse?
Oh, God, will you please?
I'm tired of the poverty,
Hate, war, and disease!

If i could please just tell folks
Of its wondrous sights!
Not ever seeing want, despair
In this endless night!
Places redolent of rainbows
Refraction of the light!
Peak pure joy perpetually!
Happiness at height!

The slender, supple blossoming
Of lillies! Endless spring!
Of roses, buxom! Burgeoning!
And peonies which sing!
The dew never leaves them,
And bring a brilliant bling
There is a pleasant mist here,
Water falls and pings!

Such a spectrum! Endless!
Colors never seen
On the perch'd parrots
Which parody & preen.
Leaves which never leave the trees
Jeweled amethyst, NOT GREEN!!

I confess I've dreamt it.
Pellucid water's depths.
Though I've never seen it.
I confess I've wept.

Oh, God, let me be swept

From this place of hardship.
From this place of pain.
A place of passion's sorrow
And polluted rain
To a place so endless...
No horizon's on its plain!

Here's the place of perfect peace,
The place where angels roam
This is NOT a place of Pilgrimage...

Heaven is my HOME


SoulSurvivor
Aka Write of Passage

THE CLUB-HARDENED-****-SWINGING SAMPLER swung pig weight around to inflict his ****-hardened demeanor onto the slaves who pay his pay; into the wondrous/wonderless fray...