Time To Get The Bike Out

Nearly a year gone by
and in the shed I spy
the bike, still and out of use,
unavailable for road abuse

Insurance lapsed, MOT expired,
no tax and partially rewired.
Can I show at the annual meet
without it and admit defeat?

 

Is this really the end?
surely not, old friend.
Memories of a neglected hack
slowly come swimming back...

Starting technique, full choke,
lots of noise, clouds of smoke.
Blurred mirrors, tinkling sound,
long silencer, close to the ground.

Curtains twitch, ‘It’s that old git’,
‘Do you think he is mentally fit?’
They don’t know, they can’t see
how nice a motorbike ride can be.

Red light, change down,
past the camera and out of town.
Twist the grip, through the gears,
visor down to stop the tears.

Bright weather, quiet domain,
pleasantly scared, twisty lane.
All the togs, whistling air,
of life’s worries not a care!

Three more miles, going well,
burnt two stroke, lovely smell.
The joy of biking far outweigh
no matter what neighbours say!

Words & illustration by Ian Douglas

The Universal

Super Satellite

Poetry In Motion

“Black Jackets”

Thom Gunn.

In the silence that prolongs the span

Rawly of music when the record ends,

The red-haired boy who drove a van

In weekday overalls but, like his friends,

Wore motorcycle boots and jacket here

To suit the Sunday hangout he was in,

Heard, as he stretched back from his beer,

Leather creak softly round his neck and chin.

Before him on a coal-black sleeve

Remote exertion had lined, scratched and burned

Insignia that could not revive

The heroic fall or climb where they were earned.

On the other drinkers bent together,

Concocting selves for their impervious kit,

He saw it as no more than leather

Which, taut across the shoulders grown to it,

Sent through the dimness of a bar,

As sudden and anonymous hints of light

As those that shipping give, that are

Now flickers in the Bay, now lost in sight.

He stretched out like a cat, and rolled

The bitterish taste of beer upon his tongue,

And listened to a joke being told:

The present was the things he stayed among.

If it was only loss he wore,

He wore it to assert, with fierce devotion,

Complicity and nothing more.

He recollected his initiation,

And one especially of the rites.
For on his shoulders they had put tattoos:
The group's name on the left, The Knights,
And on the right the slogan Born to Lose.