The Rider
The chain on the flywheel generated force forward making the gears in my brain turn. Poetry pops into my head right away, for no reason at all — the word turned into bait that my heart latched onto at that moment.
I chewed on the idea of writing poetry, but of course, my ego came out and started to become the architect that built a tower of resistance for reasons why I should not start. Of course, that damn word “should,” flows in a way that seduces my heart that’s lusting for poetry. And what I’ve found chasing lust is that it has no place in art, especially poetry.
My arms finally relaxed into a good position on the handlebars of my road bike, a green and black Clydesdale - the old steed. This bike and I have spent a lot of time generating new ideas for many different facets in my life. A toy that I come back to that allows my soul and spirit to wander, similar to how running for hours did for me in the past. The sun hangs bright over top, with the ocean breeze brushing itself against the canvas that covers my heart. My legs are starting to fill with blood, creating a sick pump that makes me want to slow the cadence down up the hill that takes my breath away. Drifting away from the efforts of my physical body and back to the mind, only to find poetry still hooked and swimming to the revolutions of my feet turning the wheels through the hills of Southern California.
The swaying of the “y” at the end of poetry spins me into a flashback of a time in Bootcamp when poetry was all I wrote. A brother had shared with me a love he had for words, God, and his wife at that time. His passion was infectious and his vocal cords overpowered my mind to a picture with his words on the canvas of my mind. Inside the hourglass writing flowed about love, a couple of knuckle draggers hiding in the corner of the barrack expressing our love for the world we lived in, not knowing we both experienced the opposite of love, which became hate as the hourglass emptied. Hate for an enemy that wanted us dead. The hate that overtook my heart for longer than I wanted it to. But recently, after writing about war, hate, evil, and lust, I found it difficult to write more - especially from a place of anger, grief, sadness, and destruction.
Lately, my energy to write seems to crave the feeling of love, and with that feeling, poetry fills my heart walls. Pedal after pedal, crank after crank, shifting in and out of gears making my way around Lakeside, taking in the effects of a year-and-a-half nationwide shutdown. An area once to be known as the Los Angeles of SoCal, but now an area rundown that lacks the financial spirit to keep businesses open, causing many humans to retreat into a life of survival. Paying close attention to the rocks, nails, glass, and potholes trying to take me out leads to a state of flow. Building a calibration to the universe, mutating my vision to supersonic speed. I race the cars passing my left side shoulder causing my body and bike to weave to the right. My mind becomes focused even more on navigating the mean streets of SoCal, a place road cyclists love and hate. A fight between Mother Nature and Human Nature. The weather is beautiful and hard to resist, and on the other hand, the psycho drivers seem to be blind to riders.
Cycling between my physical body and mind trying to stay alive while riding on the road gives me a brain dump of chemicals that breaches the emotional barrier that has been built by the ego. Trying to hide secrets and wisdom only I carry and have access to. Yet, a seeker’s spirit must be obtained with effort both internally and externally. The next thing that pops into my head as I flush the blood from my legs, regain my breathing, and lower my racing heartbeat is a set of words that left me listening, observing, and feeling:
Rubber kisses pavement
Lactic builds concurrently.
Revolution after Revolution
Oxygen cycles in.
Ants swamp the limbs
CO2 leaks out faster and faster.
Heart, Spirit, Mind, Soul
Happy as can be.
