She Rides

SHE RIDES

spin me like I have already spoken

like a spoke holds its tension

like it’s together that the spokes are the invention of a wheel

that a wheel is only as round as it’s tension

that a wheel is a round invention

She gets on her bicycle, She gets on her bicycle,
She gets on her bicycle: she rides!

Fragile as bodies soaring through the city

on two-wheeled cycles through the traffic and people

steering clear of the potholes and car doors and the streetcar tracks

tuned into our own personal soundtrack

I’m singing out loud as I pedal through the streets

spinning to the rhythm of  4.5 million heart beats

I tend to miss my turnoffs when I’m tuned in to my turn-on’s

I tend to write sentences that turn into run-on’s

I tend to recycle the same thoughts that circle round

the way I re-cycle the same stretches of ground

on my two-wheeled bicycle that gets me around.
She gets on her bicycle…..
I get this feeling on my two-wheeled steed:

when I pick up speed: it feeds something free

the desire for autonomy, moving outside the dominant economy

under my own steam two wheels, not four:

no gas, no oil, no war for this machine

all I need is air, two legs, two wheels,

a crank and a chain, two pedals and a frame

A revolution that keep me arriving, again and again

She gets on her bicycle, she rides…

And the back wheel is attached to the chain!

It’s the back wheel that’s attached to the chain!

The back wheel is attached to the chain!

The past drives us forward, again and again

The past is behind us; the back wheel is the power

The front wheel freewheels, hour after hour

You can’t ride a bike in 30 pounds of petticoats

You don’t have a voice in a democracy without a vote

A wheel would collapse if it wasn’t for the spokes
She gets on her bicycle, she gets on her bicycle, she gets on her bicycle, she rides!

 

 

evalyn parry 2011  SOCAN