This is a poem I recently wrote. It's about my bike. Feel free to criticize it mercilessly, I won't be offended.
Old creaky bike
rusty mechanical ages
that precipitate in corroded auras
That make me raspy
and angry
Where did that old orange screw go
it rolled away and disintegrated into the earth
Goodbye, goodbye
So long old friend
I think I need to trade you in, faithful steed.
(The screws disintegrate one by one)
Body of steel,
and cycles of iron
Of what will I wish of you when you are gone
Of what will I laugh of if it's not of your shortcomings
Old chain pedal machine.
Old friction of metal against metal
with my volition as your will
There is no difference between the two
We move so nicely together, its as if we were stilll.
Still...
Faithful metallic steed
creaky as you are mighty
we are now as one, russshingg...
What are you missing?
Until I decide to set you free.
9 comments:
Money!
This is really good Anita. There is a real palpable sense of emotion, which is cool because it's about your bike (or a bike). If you want my critique: I would take out the lines "that precipitate in corroded auras" and "with my volition as your will". Why, you might ask? I think that the whole poem has a very visceral feel, i.e. "Old friction of metal against metal", "creaky as you are mighty" and "Where did that old orange screw go
it rolled away and disintegrated into the earth". These lines are fantastic. But more importantly, they say/describe something tangible rather than a thought/conception. The lines I mentioned which I’d remove are, in my opinion, not so. Thus, they kind of take away from the raw power of the rest of the piece which is done so well. If you look at the poem, I think you could just take out those lines and compact the poem without changing it and it would have just a bit more resonance i.e.
“Old creaky bike,
rusty mechanical ages
That make me raspy
and angry”
“Old friction of metal against metal,
There is no difference between the two
We move so nicely together, its as if we were stilll.”
Anyways, those are just my thoughts. Thanks for the poem!
I love 'with my volition as your will!'
Heh.
beautiful and tangible.
I can hear it and almost taste the scraping metal.
you say so much with an everyday object. (sort of like a william carlos william poem, only yours is more visceral like donmaximo said).
I like that you also mix the images of body and bike together.
I like the image of it disintegrating/falling back into earth, also the notion that your bike is a faithful steed. I always think of my bike as being a horse in a world without horses. The car is so impersonal, shielding you from the elements, taking you outside of the environment. Bikes (and horses) make you much more at one with your surroundings and, as you mention, you move together with them, they become an extension of you. And when they die (or in my case get stolen), it is a sad thing.
Fantastic. I wouldn't change anything. You clearly have a lot of fond memories of her/it/him.
i like poems and things that pretend to be about something when they're really just as much about something else (see leonard cohen's "coming back to you", for e.g.).
imo, this is about more than just a bike... though it's prob'ly about that, too. :)
Actually, it's pretty much about my bike. We have a love/hate relationship.
hmmm, nice unlocking of your word-horde
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