The Motorbike Queen

We watched “The bird man of Alcatraz”
together
on a sofa
eating ice-cream
just me
and the motorbike queen

Suzuki, Honda, Kawasaki, Yamaha
were top of the league
back in the day
when she rode to work
in red striped helmet
and leathers

Rostered together
we worked well
a good team I thought
as we dusted and hoovered
cooked the tea
put residents to bed

She fell asleep as the credits rolled
past the midnight hour
and I wondered
if should I wake her?
Perhaps a gentle touch
on the cheek and

She would fall into my arms.
But her cheek
was not mine to touch
so, like the birdman
refusing the chance of escape
I stayed my hand.

Biking skills?
I had none
unless you count a frantic pedalling
up and down hills
when choosing bicycle over bus
to get to work

So, like Burt Lancaster
surfing the crest
of poetic licence
I will say I rode pillion
round Somerset twisties
with the motorbike queen.

Copyright ashyvicar October 2024

There’ll be ice-cream….

there’ll be ice-cream in the kingdom of god
the angels got thrown out
with their tuneless harps
singing in parts –
does god need such noise about?

there’ll be ice-cream in the kingdom of god
the angels ask to re-skill
“we’ll put down our halos
take up italiano
make rum ‘n’ raisin for the soul”

does god need all that praise and thanksgiving?
big-heads and dictators demand that…
ice-cream
a sign for the living
is where god’s kingdom is at.

– so in the ice-cream cafe
what dare I choose?
do I play safe with flavour?
what is there to loose
if I stretch my tongue tentatively around new knowledge?
if I let my taste buds off their noose?
if I celebrate the creative?
if I understand what I have understood
is not truth
but a jumped up lack of imagination
afraid of an ice-cream scoop?

but whilst in deliberation
I see a big smile on your face
unfreezing my moribund spiritual eye
it lets in light –
light I might have missed at Leighton Moss

so its god I see in your buggy
tasting that first ice-cream
joyfully plastered over the hair
blobbed-slobbed on the nose
slip-dripping down hands,
stuck to the face
the vanilla of life

there’ll be ice-cream in the kingdom of god
a real cosmopolitan place
no haughty holiness
no worthless worthiness
no faux friend-ness
no abundant life pretensions……

and then when you burst out laughing
the world starts laughing too
the passers by
have joy in their eyes
the kingdom has come
ice-cream has won
and for god that great ice-cream seller
dreams really do come true.