Here is the specially commissioned poem by Helen Moore for the National Funeral for the Unknown Victim of Traffic Violence, which was read by Helen at it on Saturday. It had me in tears the first time I read it: Thom’s Co-op Bike Café and Workshop by Helen Moore Poem composed for the National Funeral for the Unknown Victim of Traffic Violence, 15.11.2014 This for Ben, bicycle courier dancing on pedals of a red, single-speed racer… like an Eel weaving through currents of traffic, he was just as lithe and alive. * This for Ed, born for his Chopper, swapped a life of adventure to work in the City; yet cycling by fold-up from Ealing, he loved how the wind played with his tie. * This for Jorie and her chipped green Raleigh, handlebars decked with Poppies and an old Dutch bell, which tinkled silvery and warm as her laughter. * This for young Bobbie in 1930 mounting a Sunbeam, who still at ninety with rheumy eyes and trouser-clips trundled to the pond with sliced white for the Swans. * This for Anna, learning at forty…. Life begins, she called, circling the park with her cheerful instructor. Feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven! * This for Al who dismantled her racer one Christmas – bike-parts decorating the kitchen, she spent days tattooing a delicate Ivy design. * This for Charmayne, too skint for the bus, too jittery to cycle the three miles to college – trucks thundering past locked her indoors, missing her placement, eating instead. * This for Tash aka Lady Godiva astride a black Triumph – on a Naked Bike Ride, all vulnerability was belied by the slogan ‘Less gas, more ass!’ scrawled on her back. * This for Dan dressed in a tiger-suit, puffing with unicycle up a steep hill – cheered by crowds from the side-lines, Dan the Man raised a grand to save Tigers in China. * This for Leon, who twice tandemed round Britain; dreamt of motorways for cyclists and wildlife, saw the petrol car as the new dinosaur. * This for Thom, beardy mechanic and road-race champion, one-time member of LA’s Midnight Ridazz – Thom’s Co-op Bike Café and Workshop was founded for him, and is dedicated to every unknown traffic victim. Helen Moore is an award-winning ecopoet and community artist/activist. Her debut collection, Hedge Fund, And Other Living Margins (Shearsman Books 2012) was described by Alasdair Paterson as being “in the great tradition of visionary politics in British poetry.” Her second collection, ECOZOA, will be published by Permanent Publications in spring 2015. FFI: natures-words.co.uk
Posted on: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 09:00:32 +0000
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