Pedalling Tunes + River Leads + Guarding The Path (photo)

Following on from Yoko’s Bicycle Piece for Orchestra Autumn 1962

Pedalling Tunes

Cycle
To the concert
Fill holes in the Albert
Note swoops on Serpentine bending
Maple

Disguised
As a slow blues
A walking ambling tune
Underneath foliage soaked by rain
Lard Arse

Heron
Haunched area
Silently calling fish
A mesmerising hypnotist
Swinging

Grandpa
Ticking tocking
In metronomic time
One sound following each second
Quietly

Sipping
Bottled water
Booming like a bittern
Alongside Diana’s fountain
Bubbling

Bakewell
From the cafe
Jazzily reflecting
On this light breezing summer air
Picnic

Walk home
Forget the bike
Lost in a reverie
Of seeing someone somewhere there
Dreaming

Of sleep
Deep untroubled
Waking in the morning
Yawning remember red metal
Cycle

Richard Downes
19th January 2021
(From the Juice series)

The Daily Haiku used Joni Mitchell’s River to inspire haikus.

River Leads

‘They’re cutting down trees’
The waters getting higher
Climate disaster

‘But it don’t snow here’
Like it used to once before
Above Artic shores

‘It stays pretty green’
Not in England, in Greenland
Like its supposed to

‘He put me at ease
And he loved me so naughty’
He’s been washed away

‘So hard to handle’
My Lover is gone
I wish we hadn’t done it

Wish I had rivers
Not these swollen seas
Then I could follow him home

Richard Downes
20th January 2021
(From the 100 Meters series)