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Wednesday 4 July 2012


I could be treading water
through this dusky coloured air
lapping like an ocean at the boles of woodland trees
then merging with a wide expanse,
opaque and greenish hued,
of underwater gloom,
profoundly deep where sunlight filters through
and makes unreal suggestions of a surface high above.
Dark streaks of simmering Venetian red
suggest a dying sun where foliage
with sharp serrated edge
leans threateningly in.
And then the mystery, my friends:
the twisted frames of cycles on a bonfire not yet lit.
Smoke blackened, but not here - the foliage intact.
A skeleton... not human... no, not that... but
bird-like... and the bikes... in spiky set-up, weld
upon sly weld, to form,
in ill-defined resemblances, a pentagram
and Plato's broken line, an endless knot,
an enneagram, a sulfur, crescent, crux,
a ringstone and infinity - a stunning cycle crash!

17 comments:

Jim Murdoch said...

I read this over several times this morning. I shouldn’t try and read poems first thing in the morning because they just confuse me. Not that not all is clear but this is an intriguing piece. A title might help. There’s no reason why it has to have a title but I always think of a missing title as a lost opportunity. It has a nice sound. My only thought—I am here assuming that a kid was riding the bike (mainly because it’s a multiple pile-up and one doesn’t often seen adults out cycling en masse)—was that the language was a bit adult although I accept this could be an adult looking back on a childhood accident. As I just said, intriguing.

David Cranmer said...

I'd publish a collection of your poems in a heartbeat.

Daydreamertoo said...

All I can say is, if this was kids on bikes in a big pile up... ouch!
LOL
Intriguing write and very visual.

Brian Miller said...

watched a guy on a cycle hit a car going like 50..it was head on...and one of the more nasty wrecks i have ever seen...man that bike was tore up....

Gerry Snape said...

I saw the big pile up of the bikes in The Tour de France last evening...you captured that sight well!

Anonymous said...

It is so interesting how things look when we do not know what they are or what they're import is - so that something like a crash - which is actually kind of horrible, can on its own leave a sculpture.

I actually think here about what Stockhausen said about 9/11 which, as a New Yorker, I found awful - what he said and the art- he was talking of it as a work of art - and he was horrible --but of course, he's an artist and didn't mean what came across - he was speaking in these strange abstract terms - anyway--this is what your poem brought to me - the pure geometry of an incident.
k.

Carl said...

Time both compressed and stretched out all at once. I could read this one a bunch of times and find new images each time.

Tommaso Gervasutti said...

I feel very close to this, the growing increase force and precision of perception and image..

Mary said...

Like Jim, I read this over several times (though at sundown - I am late today). He mentioned intriguing. I am just going to come clean, Dave, and say it was confusing. I don't get it. I agree that a title would help. Could you possibly explain the origin of this poem? I will visit tomorrow to see if you have shed any light.

A Cuban In London said...

I wouldn't put a title on this poem at all. I, too, read it several times and to me it was a wonderful juxtaposition of nature and the man-made world. I agree with some of the posters that a bike pile-up is one of the interpretations but also a nature pile-up is possible.

That was a great piece. Many thanks.

Greetings from London.

haricot said...

Water and air, so simple elements, though your lines give me such rich image with many colours are mixed up...

Mary said...

Hi Dave, missed a poem from you on July 5. Unusual for you to miss a day. I saw a short note from you over at Theme Thursday. I do hope you are doing ok.

Dave King said...

Ouch! I have to go back to the drawing board with this one. It was meant to be a walk in the woods in which I came across what looked like a bonfire and on top a construction crafted from old bikes and bike frames. I fancied I could make out signs and symbols in the twisted metal - some were almost there, somme took a lot of imagination.

Sorry I have to make one reply fit all comments, but I have n o broadband at the moment - and it's becoming a very long moment!

I will just add though, if I may, a word of thanks to Mary for her honesty.

Wedding Cars Sydney said...

Your poems are totally wicked. Can I ask for your permission? Can compile all your poems? Please.

Mary said...

Thanks for the explanation, Dave. Perhaps reworking a bit might be good; or even a title that gives the reader a clue. And I do generally try to be honest. I am not one to pretend to see the 'emperor's new clothes' when I don't. Especially with poets I have come to know well, and I would expect / hope for/ appreciate the same from them.

Silent Otto said...

We are all fish in a bowl are we not. A force as mighty as Gabriel himself might see these deeps where we humans lurk as a place where even Angels fear to tread. I really enjoyed this one

quality website design said...

I also made some poems during high school but with simple words only. I salute your poem and the choice of words.