The choice of today’s contribution to poetry month was inspired by news about the cycle way .
Ode by Gillian Allnutt comes from All the Poems You Need to Say I Do, edited by Peter Forbes, published by Picador.
Ode
To depict a (bicycle) first you must come to love (it).
Alexander Block
I swear by every rule in the bicycle
owner’s manual
that I love you, I, who have repeatedly,
painstakingly,
with accompanying declaration of despair,
tried to repair
you, to patch things up,
to maintain a workable relationship.
I have spent sleepless nights
in pondering your parts – those private
and those that all who walk the street
may look at –
wondering what makes you tick
over smoothly, or squeak.
my trusty steed,
my rusty three-speed,
I would feed you the best oats
if oats
were applicable.
Only linseed oil
will do
to nourish you.
I want
So much to paint
You,
Midnight blue
mudgutter black
And standing as you do, ironic
At the rail
Provided by the Council –
beautiful
the sun caught in your back wheel –
or at home in the hall, remarkable
among other bicycles,
your handlebars erect.
Allow me to depict
you thus. And though I can’t do justice
to your true opinion of the surface
of the road –
put into words
the nice distinctions that you make
among the different sorts of tarmac –
still, I’d like to set the record of our travels straight.
I’d have you know that
not with three-in-one
but with my own
heart’s spittle I anoint your moving parts.
Gillian Allnutt.
Homepaddock 