Happenstance

Freeways, highways, byways, roadways, speedways, parkways, pike-ways

Great concrete ribbons laid upon the earth to move us any old which way

Where are you going? How are you going? Why?

Walking along the road, mid-day,

Heat waves rising up from the asphalt

Eerie cobras weaving to some charmer’s horn

He can hear his footfalls questioning

Are we there yet?

Stay calm, just a few more miles he thinks

Or was that audible?

An object to his right barely seen

Sunny fingers tickle its surface

Illuminating the pebble

White quartz glistens, sparkles

Pedestrian except the shape

A perfect heart

Picking it up, warm like a biscuit just out of the oven

Pondering for a minute whether to pocket

Instead, he tosses it to the side, in the air like a rocket

Landing, the pebble bounces, coming to rest in the road

Unseen by the man who walks on, his head bowed

The cyclist on the last leg of his journey

A Triathlon of his own making

Created to prove his mettle to himself

To settle his own score

Head down over the handlebars

The only car in sight

The one coming, on the horizon

Legs pumping hard now

Just three miles more

Nothing like beating your own records

Sweat pouring from underneath his helmet

Oakley's slipping, push them up

Small, white, glinting object on the road

Front tire connection no time for correction

Here comes the ejection

Can he control the direction?

Spinner, spinner

Legs akimbo a pinwheel cycle

A rag doll Frisbee coming to rest on the desert floor

The two-wheeled steed gallops diagonally across the blacktop

No pilot, no rider to determine its way

No brakes applied to make it slow down or stay

Cruising at a fast clip

Slip, slip, up and down

Down and up, desert road filled with dips

Straight as a plumb line

Stretching all the way to nowhere or somewhere

Or anywhere in between is just fine

Keep the top down and the radio up

A woman at the wheel letting the good times reel

Nothing beats 95 when its 98

Rhythmic euphoric beats

Nowhere to go so you can’t be late

The Joshua Tree expands endorphins

With or Without You

She is Running to Stand Still

To that place Where the Streets have no Name

And every day is Sunday Bloody Sunday

The needle drags across the vinyl abruptly

Up over the rise, the bike flies

Metal glinting in the sun

A self-propelled Cannondale carbon cannonball

Like a Bullet in the Blue Sky

A kangaroo rat on a drunken binge

It comes to rest in the back seat

She doesn’t stop or skip a beat

Driving off lazily toward the west

In a demi-dazed, semi-glazed acid test

Little red convertible

Music pounding the desert air

Like a crazy rock and roll calliope

She may be at the helm but she isn’t there

A pedal slowly spins

Depending on the wind

Back in time events rescind

Forward in a future trance

A whirling roulette wheel of chance

Such is the way of happenstance