back on the bike

after a bit of a hazy time what with work and mystery illness i lag far too long off the bike. i do get the rohloff winter/touring machine together but the bodging means a downhill tyre on the back which is just stupid and that's before the dodginess of the rohloff. the theory is good but the practicality cycles like a tractor.

but aside from all of that, whisper it, i've kind of gone off the mountain bike. maybe it's because i haven't bothered with the likes of the three tens or such like so far this year (who needs to cycle round the same old forest again and again) or maybe it's just because i'm enjoying my new bikes - the trek was instantly splendid, the bmc is becoming so. whatever this year the road is king.

so today i decide i'll go out in the afternoon for a cheeky wee fifty around all the steepest hills i know. and while i don't have to take the van to necessarily mountain bike the road bike provides a myriad of top routes straight from the door. i could wangle a bit of a sixty i think without having to compromise too much on main roads but beyond that for an afternoon trundle i'm not prepared to go.

i think i saw two cars off the main drag! and while there was little in the way of wildlife - a sea eagle and that was about it - the plantlife more than made up for it. it's wild raspberry season where i live so as soon as t came back from work we were straight back out again to harvest the fruits of my scouting mission. no-one here appears to eat them, preferring to spend a fortune on the frankly inferior product down the supermarket (i do have raspberries growing in the garden but the wild ones are better). we've had a bit of a gorge on these lately so t now has us putting them all away in the freezer so that come the long nights we can crack out some of the summer sun!

now we're just waiting for the blue berries, the brambles and the hips!

the tour

and again the tour is over. so how was it?

first things first. contador/schleck. i warmed more to contador this year than i had last year not least because of this advert. but at the same time it turns out that contador and schleck are so chummy off the bike they're not long off holiday together. problematic in a stage race i'd say (fignon - what a guy!). so chaingate? i was surprised when it happened but in retrospect it's a race. what're they going to do next? hang back because someone - evans/basso - isn't feeling well? schleck should've had his bike maintained/changed gear properly.

plus i don't think contador was in the best form. sure schleck attacked a bit but not as much as he could have. the time trial was great for him but just showed how off contador was even allowing for those wags in his team car lying to him about his 'deficit'. i think contador's emotion at the end gave an insight into the true story.

it was interesting too to see his relationship with vinokourov. vino's always going to be a tainted pleasure now but great to see him doing his vino thing again and better than in the giro. tho at the same time still riding for the team.

the mountains. anthony charteau. who? great result and one fo many for the french who got their best haul of stage wins since the eighties. laziness coupled with waaaay too much time in front of eurosport had me not reading the french papers but i'm guessing it was a mix of francocentric glee coupled with the usual handwringing about the state of french cycling, the demise of the tour and how it was better in the old days.

the points. poor old thor hushovd just doesn't have the legs for it these days which is a shame as tactically he seemed the most able. a shame too for robbie mcewan who you have to feel could've snatched more had he not had to cope with photographers flinging themselves at him. as it was a fine victory for pettachi, who's now got the points jersey in all the grand tours, a record that was overshadowed by the contador/schleck shenanigans but will be rearing its head in a drug investigation soonish. as for cavendish. what a great finish in the last stage. he may be many things but not quick at the end isn't one of them.

the race. i thought it was great. i loved both the avoriaz and tourmalet stages and the arrangement of the stages generally. there wasn't that dip in the third week for breakaways/sprinters and i didn't miss (surprisingly) either the team time trial or a second individual time trial. and it was great to see more and more young riders coming through in a grand tour.

which of course means armstrong. basso was poorly but had been poor anyway. poor old evans was broken but you have to feel that maybe, just maybe the efforts of the pair of them in the giro were coming back to haunt them. someone whose efforts in the giro extended only to the prologue was bradley wiggins. sky must be thinking about all that garmin transfer money as he failed to much of anything beyond moaning about his form and wearing progressively more comedy sunglasses. given the general arrogance of sky it's hard to feel much sympathy tho well done to thomas lofkvist who finshed in a cheeky seventeenth and surely must be a better all round prospect than wiggins who should maybe concentrate on his speed rather than climbing.

but armstrong, poor old puncturing, crashing armstrong who loves the tour so much he kissed the ground more than the pope. this was cheery armstrong rather than the stone faced patron of yesteryear which would've been good had it not also been past your sell by date armstrong. worse still, esp in light of the contador/vino pairing at astana, it was an armstrong who may not have been at his best but still didn't discernably ride for leipheimer or anyone else, somewhat ironic given chris horner's performance. at thirty nine. thirty nine lance! armstrong it appears may be be many things but a team player rather than a leader isn't one of them. and all this before the comedy of the jerseys on the last stage. one could almost hear the collective grinding of teeth of the world's accumulated lance haters.

of whom i'm not one but i'm still glad to see him gone. i got a real sense this year of that old era of cycling passing and new names emerging to take their place. true, cycling will never be drug free but i'd like to think drug use will never be as endemic as it used to be. of course it's not quite gone as the fda investigation in the wake of the landis accusations will doubtless roll on and on but it's on its way.

which begs the question. what will the lanceophiles/phobics do now? better yet, what next for greg lemond? i've been bemused by the frequency with which lemond's 'pure' tour has been referenced this year. as opposed to what - the other two, or the two that he didn't win? i feel sorry for lemond, he hasn't had the best luck either professionally or in business, even before a vast lance centred conspiracy theory and i find it difficult to watch his old performances now in the light of that.

but surely there should be some sort of special legal categorisation known as the lemond defence. i think the cycling armchair warriors have missed out on this. aside from a couple of odd blood results, the 'i only took multivitamins' excuse, lemond's commitment to pushing performance in every other area except drugs which he would never, ever do, aside form all of that lemond should be commended for the 'everyone else is doing this but not me, i rose above it all' line that should now be called 'the lemond defense'.

witness in recent times. richard virenque. richard, your entire team are doping, we got the drugs, your team mates are telling us you doped. virenque employs the lemond defense. it wasn't me, i am the only pure cyclist - and then employs a spin on the lemond, the virenque blub.

tyler hamilton. tyler, tyler after all those broken collar bone heroics how could you? but he did. and he too tried a variation. the 'it was my dead unborn twin what did for me' get out. but it didn't.

floyd landis. the signs were there early on that landis wasn't going to master the lemond defence as he touted a skinful of alcohol as a performance enhancing drug rather than a godawful attempt at masking the shedload of testosterone he'd got down him. this before some shameful blackmailing attempts and then of course he makes the cardinal error of admitting it was true all along.

but of course lance armstrong. possibly the most convincing practitioner of the lemond defence since...lemond. a denial so cast iron that the denial itself begins to look doubtful. why is lemond so pissed off? because lance has stolen his fire. armstrong has taken the lemond defense and made it his own. in the future maybe it'll be known as the armstrong defense and lemond will fester and sue. but then only the most commited of online presences will surely care.

in the end all that bothers me is how it affects those on the hard end of the livestrong campaign. seeing that level of belief at first hand is really quite affecting, if not disturbing. whatever the truth of the allegations the effect on those people is something all of those in the lance debate should be squaring with their own consciences. because that really isn't about a bike race.

john agard

Alternative Anthem

Put the kettle on
Put the kettle on
It is the British answer
To Armageddon.

Never mind taxes rise
Never mind trains are late
One thing you can be sure of
and that’s the kettle, mate.

It’s not whether you lose
It’s not whether you win
It’s whether or not
you’ve plugged the kettle in.

May the kettle ever his
May the kettle ever steam
It is the engine
that drives our nation’s dream.

Long live the kettle
that rules over us
May it be limescale free
and may it never rust.

Sing it on the beaches
Sing it from the housetops
The sun may set on empire
but the kettle never stops

juan ramon jimenez

To the bridge of love

To the bridge of love,
old stone between tall cliffs

- eternal meeting place, red evening ,
I come with my heart.

- My beloved is only water,
that always passes away, and does not deceive,
that always passes away, and does not change,
that always passes away, and does not end.


trns james wright

roberto juarroz

From Sixth Vertical Poetry

The bell is full of wind
though it does not ring.
The bird is full of flight
though it is still.
The sky is full of clouds
though it is alone.
The word is full of voice
though no one speaks it.
Everything is full of fleeing
though there are no roads.

Everything is fleeing
toward its presence.


trans by W. S. Merwin

yannis papaionnou

Nights Without Hope (Rebetiko Song)

Late nights without hope
I walk the streets alone.
Before your shuttered window
I spend sad hours.

How I long to meet you
to find old joys again,
again to give you kisses
so black despair will leave.

But who knows where you wander
There in some foreign land.
I wonder if you think of me
or suffer for someone else.

trans Gail Holst-Warhaft

dennis brutus

Mario Benedetti

They Hanged Him, I Said Dismissively

They hanged him, I said dismissively
having no other way to say he died
or that he was a dear friend
or that work wove us most intimately
in common tasks, ambitions, desires.
Now he is dead: I dare not think
of the anguish that drove him to where he was
or the apin at their hands he must have faced
or how much he was racked by my distress:
now, it is still easiest to say, they hanged him
dismissively

wole soyinka

The Hunchback of Dugbe

I wondered always where
He walked at night, or lay
Where earth might seem
Suddenly in labour when he sighed.

By day stooped at public drains
Intense at bath or washing cotton holes,
An ant’s blown load upon
A child’s entangled scrawl
The calmest nudist
Of the roadside lunatics.

The devil cam one sane night
On parole from hell, lace curtains
Sieved light dancing pebbles
On his vast creation egg

His cement mixer borne
On crossed cassava sticks.

Not in disdain, but in truth immune
From song or terror, taxi turns
And sale fuss of the mad, beyond
Ugliness or beauty, whom thought-sealing
Solemnly transfigures – the world
Spins on his spine, in still illusion.

But the bell-tower of his thin
Buttocks rings pure tones on the Dugbe
A horse penis loin to crooked knees
Side-slapping on his thighs

At night he prowls, a cask
Of silence; on his lone matrix
Pigeon eggs of light dance in and out
Of dark, and he walks in motley.

rain!

days of work looking forward to the bike and now stuck in the house with the rain. i did actually do some work on my wet bike yesterday but it's not done what with it not being winter and all and i don't want to wreck the others with water (i.e. i'm too lazy to do a proper cleaning job!)

of course i should be writing or painting or somesuch but i have an overwhelming urge to doze. eat and watch dumbass movies....

jang jin-sung

For 100 won, my daughter I sell

Exhausted, in the midst of the market she stood
"For 100 won, my daughter I sell"
Heavy medallion of sorrow
A cardboard around her neck she had hung
Next to her young daughter
Exhausted, in the midst of the market she stood

A deaf-mute the mother
She gazed down at the ground, just ignoring
The curses the people all threw
As they glared
At the mother who sold
Her motherhood, her own flesh and blood

Her tears dried up
Though her daughter, upon learning
Her mother would perish of a deadly disease
Had buried her face in the mother’s long skirt
And bellowed, and cried
But the mother stood still
And her lips only quivered

Unable she was to give thanks to the soldier
Who slipped a hundred won into her hand
As he uttered
"It is your motherhood,
And not the daughter I'm buying
She took the money, and ran

A mother she was,
And the 100 won she had taken
She spent on a loaf of wheat bread
Toward her daughter she ran
As fast as she could
And pressed the bread on the child's lips
"Forgive me, my child"
In the midst of the market she stood
And she wailed.

trans unknown

branko miljkovic

In Vain I wake her

I wake her for the sun that explains itself in plants
For sky stretched between the fingers
I wake her for words that burn my throat
I love her with my ears.
End of the world should be reached and drops of dew found in grass.
I wake her for some distant things that look like these here,
For people who, without forehead or name, go along the street,
For anonymous words, for squares I wake her,
For manufactured landscapes of public parks.
I wake her for this planet of ours which may become a mine
In bloodshed sky
For smiles in stones, friends fallen asleep between two battles
When sky was no longer a big birdcage but
An airport
My love full of others is a part of dawn,
I wake her for the dawn, for love, for myself, for others,
I wake her, even if it is more in vain than to call a bird
That landed forever
She must have said: let him look for me and see that I am gone
That woman with the hands of a child that I love
That child fallen asleep with tears still not wiped, which I wake
In vain in vain in vain
In vain I wake her
For she will wake up different and new
In vain I wake her
For her mouth will not be able to tell
In vain I wake her
You know the water runs through but says nothing
In vain I wake her
A lost name should be promised someone's face in sand
If this is not so cut off my arms and turn me into stone

trans by Nicholas Cobic

esther jansma

Absence

As roses open without you seeing it,
a rose is a rose is, is suddenly knowing:
what was said repeats itself - missing something
is plural - keeps opening in the now

and you don't grasp how. You lie in the heart
and you wait and nothingness seeks you, nothingness
sleeps you to the light, continues to unfold
as it falls into itself.

trans James Brockway

dezider banga

Fire

Oh Roma, Oh you my people
You my people with a face of bronze
From a fire of thousand years
Oh, how many times the world has hurt you
For your children
Not one star will be lit!?
You never built cathedrals
Fire is your church
For which you get down on your knees
With black eyes you pray
To fire you confess
You have been silent for thousand years
Above your silent lips
A forest grew
A forest of unfulfilled Romany wishes!

Trans unknown

daniele pantano

THE OLDEST HANDS IN THE WORLD

On this chair, as I am every morning, waiting
For the cappuccino and brioche to arrive,

And the girl with the oldest hands in the world,
I sense exile is a city reared by eternal artifice.

All sweet violence and thought and repetition.

Beyond what history has left of this topography,
The cup is whiteness, the coffee brown semen.

My first sip makes her appear with provender
And sandals from behind the insignificant ruins.

But for the time being, ruins are eucalyptus trees.
And she not a girl on her way to feed chickens

But a face concealed by dripping nets. Dressed
In black sails and hair dyed a Roman blonde.

The lips of her soul are burning sages, I know.
Her name, I don't. Only her hands matter.

Laden with broached scars, they remind me—
Home is where children sprout in rippled soil.

Where footsteps are mosaics of possibility.

To go on. Finish breakfast. Read the line
That ends in God's breath. Again.

trans by daniele pantano

roberto sosa

Time

To Eduardo Bähr and Víctor Meza

Life moves on and drops its rotten apple.

Time turns and all creation changes. Beasts

will turn to foam and jails to kindergartens.

Gold, its infinity, or the hate of man for man

will be by the end of this affair

mere paper birds.

Meanwhile our great day doesn’t dawn.

We live like those

whose hands are in the fire

who know Time

as a noose around the neck.

Trees burst into tears for fellow trees.

I'’m moving on. Before long

so will you.


trans by JoAnne Engelbert