Cycling
and Other Unlikely Events
Published by Dawn Print © 2008
Copyright © Alex Frew2008
Cover Picture Copyright © Andrew Fleming 2003-2008
The author has asserted his right to be identified as the writer of these poems under the patents and copyright act 1988.
These poems may not be reproduced without the permission of the author by any other means including photocopying, typing or scanning.
Title
Cycling
The Cyclist
The Worst Day of My Life
Astra
Psycho Cycler
A summer Tale
At Night
Past and Present
Bird Man
I am a tourist
Burgers
By the River
For Campbell
Beast
The Common
Brake My Heart
Cycling
I love to go a-riding
Riding on my bike.
Cycling can be so much fun
It takes you where you like.
Up hills, down hills
Straight along the street.
Heart thumping, feet churning
Something you can't beat.
The Universal Cycle
It's like an album name
By Donovan, but I'll tell you
Boy, cycling is my game.
Up gears, down gears,
Never mind the weather.
Off the beaten track now
Over moss and heather.
Going round the roundabout
In the wrong lane
Lorries riding near my bum
Low-loaders are a pain.
I've learned a body language
Car drivers don't like,
I use it oh so frequently
When riding on my bike.
The middle finger's much
employed
And I enjoy the chase.
As long as I go biking
My life will feel in place!
The Cyclist
I’ve been cycling this road so long
Ma legs are big and strong
I know every crack and pothole
In Shortlees.
Where caution’s the name of the game
All drivers are totally insane
Braking hard is what you
Always have to do.
I’m a cycling cowboy
Who fell off on his arse
Skidding at a roundabout.
I’m a cycling cowboy
For some reason all the
Van drivers and motorists shout
When I’m out in the pouring rain.
They think I must be insane.
I’m cycling all round this town
With the rain always teeming down
Mud splashing up my legs
And on to my backside.
Pedestrians they see me ride
They all run and hide
No wonder, when my brakes
Are totally gone now.
I’m a cycling cowboy
Who fell off on his arse
Skidding at a roundabout.
I’m a cycling cowboy
For some reason all the
Van drivers and motorists shout
When I’m out in the pouring rain.
The Worst Day of My Life
I was on my bicycle
Heading out to Troon
This was a big mistake,
I found out far too soon.
I was on the back road,
Leading to Gatehead
When there was an incident
That nearly left me dead.
Those cars are unpredictable
Those drivers they are shite
I think I’ve had the worst day of my life.
Inside my head just
Like a movie it unreels
I left some skid marks and
I don’t mean with my wheels.
My shins were black and blue,
I left some skin as I bounced across the road,
I’m glad that I’m not thin.
Those cars are unpredictable
Those drivers they are shite
I think I’ve had the worst day of my life.
Astra
Men sitting round a table
Talking about stars
Black holes and galaxies
Wormholes and quasars
Quantum physics, feng shui
Gravity wells, Waverider
The speed of light, Einstein.
And all the time we sip
Bitter coffee flavoured with
The milk Duncan brought
Talking as we ought.
And outside people pass
Girls with girls men with
Women, women in Sari's
And inside, while talking
Of other worlds beyond
Andy Nimmo
Keeps an anxious eye on
His bike in case someone
Nicks it.
Psycho Cycler
Mama was a psycho cycler
Papa was too
Papa was a cyclist
At the age of 82.
If you are a missy
You should know
It’s great
To sit upon a saddle
It’s never too late.
If you are a boyo
Then a bike can
Make you hard.
Psycho cycling
Stops you turning
Into a ball of lard.
So do the thing
That you should do.
Get a bike and
It’ll see you
Through.
The wind and rain
And snow until you
Get up to
The highest hill.
And you’ll never need
To take
Too much of any pill.
A Summer Tale
We walked in the sunshine
Laughed and found
An excuse to brush our hands
Together.
Talking about nothing much
Yet sharing the depth
Of the moment as people
Do when they're in love.
Now we walk beneath clouds
There is little laughter
A dark shadow hangs
Between us.
Cold as a corpse.
I tried to give you the
World but you rejected me
This is not enough
It never is.
At Night
When the day vanishes and
The night creeps in
I try to silence the thoughts
In my mind
If hearing voices means you
Then I am for the echoes of
The words said
Through the day reverberate in
The dry
And hollow chambers of my
Brain
Only then can I catch the
Errant thoughts
Pack them up and enter into that
Little death
A pocket of silence we all
Need
To blank out the terrible hurts
Of the world
Past and Present
What is this life so full of care
If you don't have time to stand and stare?
I don't know the poet who wrote this rhyme
But they had a sense of place and time.
Never mind our Mr Harry Lauder
With his words about Scottish Sodger
Hi
s long Kilt and crooked walking stick
That view of Scotland makes me sick.
Scotland is a place of places
People walking with their faces
Turned away from what they see
All the time - familiarity.
But I am a tourist
I am naive
Passing through these places
And I believe
In looking up, craning my neck
Bone's a-creaking, just a speck
Of humanity.
Taking it all in.
I can see a world of people
Who lived in these spaces
None now alive but I feel traces
Of them as I look around while
In these buildings abound
Computers and copiers and
Bored office workers.
Where once children with muddy shoes
Clattered up stairs,
Where men drank booze
And wives had no time to be dreamy
As they spent their time feeding
The weans,
Or slaving away at the steamie.
Their lives may seem narrow somehow,
No tv, computers, no internet
Struggling to survive on the pittance
You'd get from a sixpence admittance
As a fleapit usher.
While your man searched for work.
So I walk around and soon it seems
Sepia prints that people my dreams
Come alive and the past is living
Here and now - but we all exist
There anyhow.
Bird Man
Man wasn't made
To fly like a bird
That's very plain
To see.
But do you know
If he flew
Like a bird
That he
Would chitter,
Flitter and fly all day
And dance on the
Glancing sunbeams.
He'd float far up
In the sky
Like a bird
Then he's spread out his wings
In the sun
Oh yes!
What glorious fun.
I am a Tourist
I am a tourist in my own life
Got rid of the baggage
That caused my strife.
I am a camera flickering through pictures
Amazed at some of the mixtures
Of good and bad, sublime, banal,
I see: I’m the owner of them all.
I am a tourist looking at the sky
Some are bemused and ask me why.
But there’s so much to see up there
If you have time when out anywhere.
‘And what is this life so full of care
If you don’t have time to stand and stare?’
I am a tourist in this moment of time,
Looking at my life as a kind of rhyme, with
A beginning, a middle, an end
This is the only message I send.
I am a tourist, amazed at the way
We give over our lives every day
To the faceless corporations
Those world amalgamations
Who set a price on dreams.
Try to think of what to do
So they cannot capture you.
But we’re living in a bubble
Leading in the end to trouble
Life is never as simple as it seems.
I am a tourist.
Looking at these places
You’ll never get to see the faces
Of those who lived here for so
Long
Those forebears whose lives
Were good and strong and led to us,
Except in a sepia print of the past
Bringing life to the shadows
Where we can see at last
Another world so close to ours
Yet different in so many ways
Separated from us by thousands
Of days.
Where children played now
Office spaces and stairs that
Hang outside. Gold in the sky
And hidden beauty.
Burgers
Burgers burgers burgers
That’s all they seem to do
Burgers burgers burgers
Chew chew chew
They comes into a car park
They finds themselves a bay
And then they eats themselves
To death
Every single day.
Burgers burgers burgers
Sitting on yer seat
Burgers burgers burgers
Eat eat eat
Reconstituted beef
That is what they use
It’s ears and eyes and
Arseholes
And it’s going into you.
Burgers burgers burgers
Baps baps baps
No wonder you’re so
Constipated
Goin’ for your craps.
Two cows is standin’
In a field
When one says to the other
“Don’t that bloody BSE
Bother you, my mother?”
The other cow just
Gives a grin
Speaks in a voice so sweet:
“Don’t bother me ‘cause I’m
A birdie, how you doin’?
Tweet.”
Burgers burgers burgers
Yes they will rot yer brain
So if you want to buy ‘em
Then you must be insane.
For if you eat them burgers
Your life will be a pain
And all the sense that you
Once had
Will go right down the drain.
By the River
I was walking by the river
Looking at the tide
When I saw my father standing
Across the other side
I crossed the bridge of sorrows
Through the vale of tears
I stood there before him
Bathing in all my fears.
There was a frown between his eyes
breeze blowing in his hair
behind us both the landscape
was sterile bleak and bare.
My father wouldn’t smile
I thought that I would die
I did not know what to say
He made me want to cry.
He raised his hands before me
His voice was deep and strong
I’d been there for a thousand years
Though the time was not long
I have a black house standing
With an inside high and wide
Why don’t you come there with me
And see what is inside?
Then the sweat came to my brow
Tears came to my eyes
As I watched him fade awy
Without a last ‘goodbye.’
I woke upon the riverbank
My body soaked with dew
The morning sun was up above
My life began anew.
Please forgive me father,
I’ll see you soon enough
Forget the world we’ve known
And all that vapid stuff.
For Campbell
You had no idea what
You meant to me.
In this world you were good
Amongst the bad
No-one was spiteful or mean
About you
You were always happy,
Never sad.
For thirty years you
Stood in that place
Dispensing your medicines
With style and good grace
Even more, your readiness
To talk, to see the
Other viewpoint
Made you so precious to me.
You were a beacon of light
In a world so misbegotten
Campbell you are in my
Thoughts
You will never be forgotten.
Beast
I am a cat.
Not a furry little fluffy bundle
Of fun, with perfect purrs.
I am a cat
Not the buzzing creature who
Weaves between your legs
begging to be fed.
I am a cat.
A creature of the night
Sleeping through the useless day.
I am a cat.
Darkness personified, stalking through
A landscape visible only to my eyes.
I am a cat.
Sleek killer born and bred
Lying in wait for hours on end
for my prey.
I am a cat.
Pouncing, biting, gouging, killing
A machine bred in nature raw.
The Common
Thirty-three years he walked
That land and more
Then the signs went up
Forbidden! Keep Out!
Or there'll be trouble in store.
Men with clubs and uniforms
Now patrol the grounds
Calling the police arresting
Kids and other intruders each day.
Fence posts are up blocking
Off the verdant, common fields
With more signs to show
The new owner never yields.
The man is now a tresspasser
Where he walked on summer days
With his dog and watched as
The glorious sun set the horizon ablaze.
The dog running before him,
Lolling tongue lathered and pink
This was part of their world
Never to end you would think.
Wintertime made this ground
Hard, frozen unyileding and then
Starkness of black trunks against white
Snow made him wander again.
Will he he be forbidden forever?
His heart cannot understand.
Thirty-three years cannot be dismissed
By a simple transfer of land.
Brake My Heart
We went out on our bikes
And I became ardent
Wanting to be with you
In more ways than one.
Maybe you were a little
Saddle-sore
Or the woods didn't appeal
To you
But you wouldn't let me
Have my wicked way.
Later you made up for
Your outdoor reluctance
On my single bed and
Comfy duvet.
Then you left me for
Someone I thought was
A friend who had a
Bigger bike than mine.
And that is why I always
Think of you as the
One who succeeded in
Braking my heart.