Untitled

This untitled poem was the first poem of my adult life. I had written a few previously, but they represent an earlier ethos. This poem is dense; the references and images move quickly from young adulthood through middle age and to death.

I wrote this while on a business trip to Roseburg for a grinding door to door sales job.

Untitled

"I'm looking for a Taco Bell."

"Yeah, I'm hungry-- looking into real estate."

Young Sampson sees and she

Looks good to me. Visions of
Sweet nectar gluttony--
and kings.

"I think I shall invest in land
And work the soil with my hand."

(Delilah is the magazine that
Keeps him from his grand designs,
From all that visionaries dream,
From all that he would wish to build.)
His oxen glutes just turn the wheel
His frozen heart forgets to feel.
Kansas and a tractor lease
Reflect in cyan irises.
A suit, a card, but not a sword;
A plastic plaque is his reward.

The news will tell with humid buzz
The measure of the man he was:
"He killed Hugh Hefner's son today.
In other news, the mayor's gay."

Raleigh Sprite, Day 2

Raleigh Restoration, Day 2

Man hours expended: about 1.

$0.00.

Project hours to-date: 3.5

I made some progress on sanding the frame.

Megs and I also talked about colours (she often visits me while I'm working in the garage-- if Jos is to bed and Wynn is in between feedings etc.) We're thinking a milky celeste green, but different enough from a Bianchi to make it different. It will probably veer toward the blue side of celeste. It will have a moderately wide Brooks in one of the darker, whiskey-hued brown leathers. It will be gorgeous. Those are the plans at any rate, should we live and et cetera.

I also installed a stem riser on my Felt road bike, making it fit me and making it look kind of dumb.

Raleigh Sprite, Day 1

~1970 Mixte Raleigh Sprite Restoration, Day One:

Approximately 2.5 man hours, not including strolling around Fred Meyer looking for tools and buying Dr. Pepper and Hostess chocolate mini-donuts.

Total project hours to-date: 2.5

At this point, the bike is disassembled minus the crankset, bottom bracket, and headset. I had to get a few tools to further the cause. I found a great paint stripping attachment for a drill chuck, which I tested out on the downtube.

Challenges today: getting the chainring bolts off. They were very soft and the corners got chewed up with the slightest force. I managed to get two of them out, but the third precipitated my buying the Vise Grip, with which I was able to get a sufficient purchase on the bolt to remove it. Another difficulty is/will be the cottered cranks. I gave it a gentle go with the method I've seen on the blogosphere, but nothing happened (other than some dents in the cotter head.) So... I'm going to have to use the escalating severities described by Sheldon Brown on "Retro Raleighs".

Incidentally, on my Mac at home I can't format my posts very cleanly; thus the pictures not lined up, the text all over the place, etc. etc. Not a big deal, but I'm an obsessive formatter/fontist/layout perfectionist. Oh well for me.

1976 Raleigh Sprite

Last night, Megs and I acquired a ~1976 Raleigh Sprite mixte. For free.

The catch of course was that the rear wheel is destroyed, and there is a lot of rust on various components (not the frame, though, as far as I can tell.) I've been looking for a 70's mixte Raleigh to fix up for Megs, and this one will be perfect. It even comes with an authentic vinyl Brooks saddle.

Now every bike has it's own persona-- or soul, if you will-- and it is crucial that one chooses a bike that is compatible with oneself. If this bike had spent its formative years in a local backyard, rusting away its young life in the company of Camaros and pit bulls, I might be concerned that it wasn't a match for Meghan (an adventurous but always classy gal). Don't get me wrong; a restoration of the frame described above would be just as beautiful, but it might be more comfortable 'neath a slightly bigger-boned biker gal who would ride it to and fro' the local mini mart carrying 'packs of PBR in bags slung from the handlebars. Just saying.

However, such was not the youth of the Sprite that we rescued. This bike was lovingly used, and by that most bikeish of humans: the Portlander. It met its untimely demise in a most fitting way. The previous owner had taken the bike to Burning Man, and on the dirve back, in the middle of the lonely Arizona desert, the bike fell off the back of the car.

I like to think that Megs is the kind of gal that (if she didn't have other reasons not to) would be a carefree hippy with a bike on the back of her 1989 Toyota Corolla driving to Burning Man. Except something better than Burning Man. But some big gathering in the middle of the desert.

The bike had plastic flowers in the spokes.

So anyway, I will be resurrecting this bike. My methods are more Matrix-like then messianic. It will be a long process, with many of the parts spending time soaking in various chemicals. Then, like Neo, the bike will slowly awake to the world. First it will see "men walking about as if they were trees"... and then it will hear a voice...

Genesseret

Writhing fish of speckled face talked excitedly:
“The one of whom our fathers spoke has come
again to visit us—he who hovered on the Surface
and we jumped for joy.” Forgotten memories of a
blind happiness, when our cold blood was warmed
and we felt our scales tingle.

“Come now, brothers! Come; let us fly to his net!
Ecstatically let us jump above the waterless plane, always
Careful to stay within the rope-chains!”

On the dappling surface shines a face, a face
Brown as trout, furiously bright as the swordfish,
Fiercer than the shark, and older and kinder than
The grandfather blue whale.

And the turbid waters calm
And the silent silver arrows
Forget that they are more than fish.