As Easy As Falling

My legs burn, my teeth bite into chain-steel,
The lever of a radius – my wheel.
I am attached on many levels to allow
Acceleration and braking, only though pedals.

Life seems a fiery time-lapse of lights
As I feel evolved – my air is spiked.
The rush of risk, driving me to live, move.
Distilled liquor of Man’s ingenuity propels me.

Tube, link, cog, chain, lock-ring, cork, alloy.
A bicycle Cossack charging the marauder, lines of
Barbarians keeping their metal defences high.
Red Blood. Green Grass. All new symbology lost.

I flow like water, mind at once empty
And full of flashing, raw animal intensity –
Sixth sense turned up to eleven
A roadblock turns and steps, I see it in slow-mo.

Harrods Hamleys tourist, an alien unprepared
I predict, see, smell and react – thinking for them, too.
Before I am ever registered, a shadow: I am gone
Trickled away through gnarled city fingers

My strides geared by a loved machine
Into motion at once manic and serene.
Gritty, visceral yet wrapped in velvet cloth
Beauty, tradition, belonging and souplesse.

I am a working rider, on a crest of euphoria.
A day-full of rain slides easily off my skin,
Limited others forget how waterproof they are
And deny gifts of movement, and life. And riding.