More Bicycle Poems

Sunday Afternoon (no.1)
screaming jet engines over my shoulder
rattling the sidewalks, rattling my pen
and my feathers are matted thick with oil
pooled in the potholes
crumbling underfoot.
I know the aluminum shelves of blank boxes are stocked with
the grease for their pistons, their axles, their power-steering egos
turning the combines churning out
chewing up sky
leveling tomato vine lattice in the neighborhood garden patch
grinding our tongues, refining, refueling
plowing through picnics scattering children who cower behind curbs
abandoning tire-treaded sandwiches,
left behind smoldering detritus that smelled like tar, tasted like rust,
and sounded like soot-choked tears that stung when I
made the mistake of tilting my head back to look for the sun.

A Reminder (no.2)
Wounded knee, hobbled step
a car dams the sidewalk. I can go no further.
Gingerly, I lean crutches against the fender to leave a brief note:
I read of Rhododendrons razed for Golden Gate parking
in a brittle yellowed news clipping of
waterfront grand promenades where a
civilization breathed thick sea air.
In the shadowed rubble under a crumbling overpass
I uncovered rusted spokes and crushed parasols,
a ghostly procession of free souls
and an old photo of the streetcars on Guerrero
before they shrunk the sidewalks.
One can almost fancy the swirling rainbows of motor oil
after a light rain - though it leaves a dreadful aftertaste,
but I hear the new higher octane runoff makes a good moisturizer.
So, here, you saw an empty space exposed to sky and soles and falling leaves,
and declared Manifest Destiny from your dashboard.
A crowd is gathering under your axles, I can make out a few
errant limbs in the cramped public space beneath your tires.
This sidewalk once went farther.
Once we had someplace to walk.

-Pedestrian Poetry Project,
momentum_sf@hotmail.com

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