Cycling Lawrence
Bert Haverkate-Ens
People who say Kansas is flat
have not coasted down
the long, gradual incline
toward Parnell Park
with your love,
inexorably accelerating,
gravity’s wind in your face,
a long, sweeping arc to the left
and then, with a light touch on the brakes,
a shorter, sweeping arc to the right,
the rattling, wooden planks
of the Burroughs Creek bridge
as you ride across
at the end of your descent
finally slowing your speed.
People who say life is not sweet
have not sat in the sun
on the bench in front of
La Prima Tazza,
sipping an egg crème –
chocolate and soda,
cream and ice –
with your love,
the plastic owl
high across the way
staring down from
a blue and wispy white sky.
People who say life is for the young
have not peddled up New Jersey Street
on a mild, Wednesday afternoon
on the first day in February –
you need never forget -
with your love,
pausing only to look both ways at
the stop signs
before riding on.
People say tomorrow will be cold and flat and rainy,
and I will be warm and dry,
eating reheated, roasted vegetable soup
with my love
of more than twenty-seven years.
Sensical, anon.
Poor old Bert,
he has let his mind go
free and easy as pie
and pumpernickel.
But, she exclaimed,
it has no rhyme
and reason is severely
lacking.
And then a further
argument of what
poetry should be
ensued.
walktokaw.blogspot.com
Which came
first?
(the
chicken or the egg)
Bert Haverkate-Ens
Clear back in the beginning
I told you I loved you
because you loved me.
And now all these years
it’s still the same:
I still love you
because you still love me.
There’s been some better
and some worse.
We’ve counted some chickens,
but none have hatched.
There have been
quite some omelets
and some have gone
into Belgian waffle breakfasts
with toasted pecans
and real maple syrup.
As long as we can’t
solve the riddle,
I guess we should
buy another dozen eggs.
Inclination
Bert Haverkate-Ens
I root for the underdog.
I like to eat at restaurants where the owner eats.
I prefer to shop where the store is the only link in the
chain.
I’d usually rather have home-grown, home-made
and I like going places within walking distance of my home.
But I haven’t made a religion out of local and small and
such.
Since we seem to be stuck with them,
I’m glad for corporate sponsorship of the arts and letters
and other big and faraway things.
Although this college sports thing has gotten all out of
hand.
There’s the federally funded, yet elegant, pedestrian bridge
from Omaha, Nebraska crossing the Missouri River to nearly
nowhere Iowa.
And the Calder stabile in Seattle as big as a house
but still wouldn’t keep the rain off a homeless man.
And at twice the price,
I wouldn’t give back the night I stepped outside
and looked up at the moon where Neil Armstrong
was taking his multi-billion dollar steps for mankind.
Still, I won’t be taking that last trip myself -
more like a short drive to Cutter’s Smokehouse in Eudora
for some heart-stopping ribs and sweet potato fries,
while I listen to some band of rockers
who, in their prime were never big-time,
now slip-sliding on the downhill slope …
rocket my soul to the moon.
When I finally lay me down to sleep,
there will have been some sweet
that Google never found.
walktokaw.blogspot.com
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