The Pumpkin Man Rides His Bike

[still.trucking]

[the mingo]

Texas Jack riding the "Let There Be Light" Express - I got lights on my bike but they are blinkies for the most part - I look like a rolling christmas tree going down the road.
Thx for the pic, Jack.

[the mingo]

Rolling across a gorgeous morning - i see abandoned houses & barns when i'm out and about on the backroads - either still standing but empty or falling in on themselves and overgrown with vines and brambles. In this neck of the world the oldest building sites, when there is hardly anything left but foundations & cellars, reveal their presence by a grove of staghorn sumac trees. For some reason staghorn sumac trees love to take root in these old foundations and spread out roughly circular around it. If i see in an open field or meadow a grove of sumac growing i can be 99% certain an outbuilding or barn or house once stood there.

It's a melancholic feeling these places give rise to - they point up the passage of time & lives in this hollow of a floating world, they show the fate that nothing here can avoid. They also show the limits of everything.

There is, not far from here, an old long barn surrounded by expansive fields. One end of it has collapsed so that when you see it from the road it brings to mind those paintings of the Titanic when it was going down - one end below the water and the other end thrust up at an angle.
At another place stands a house so weathered by the years that most of the paint has been carried away. This house has two singular features about it - the first is that none of it's windows have been broken, every pane of glass it had when it was built remains undamaged.
The second is that it is missing every door it ever had and every hinge that hung those doors is gone too. I pass by it from time to time and usually stop, brought up short on my roll by the mysteries this house presents to the eye & mind. Even sunlight does not penetrate very far into the interior of the place so that when you look into those doorless openings all you can really see is darkness.

When I leave from there and pedal off i don't look back. I just roll on looking straight ahead -
going
going
gone
______________________________________

Whatever it is, I quit
-now I'll let my
breath out - Jack Kerouac

[the mingo]

Everything so green now, different kinds of grasses together, all racing the clock & all bearing & ripening seed - the wildflowers coming on each in turn - yellow flowers the big thing now but June daisies beginning to appear - white petals, yellow centers - clover too, thick rich purple blossoms in groups - & buttercups.
And at night, twice ten thousand fireflies in the fields -

Took a circular route to the village this afternoon, came in by the woods road - stopped at the village cemetery to give myself a break. Propped my bike against a tree & walked the oldest part of the place where the first graves are. Some people there born in the 1700's - folks that never met David Bowie or sang with him on "Golden Years" - to everything a season ...
___________________________

Coca-Cola in short bottles
deep in
the bottomless past
____________________________

[the mingo]

It's a no-ride day unless a scuba suit is in the mix.

Writing is a technology.

Maybe an epic haiku or other short-form will walk through the rain up to my window and go BOO!

People sleepwalk. It's well known. Even though I've never heard of it I wonder if anyone has ever sleep-rode a bicycle.

Sooner or later everyone's name
will be followed
by the word "Deceased"

For the past 7000 years of human civilization the streets of our villages, towns, & cites were a space where people met, socialized, conducted business, a space where children played. Since the invention & proliferation of the automobile we have been the slaves of sidewalks & crosswalks. A man from Canada informed me of that fact. On YouTube.

I really should be left to ride my bike as much as possible. Otherwise
I will sit around doing stuff such as this.

[the mingo]

About 86 million bicycles in Japan right now
cloudburst in my general vicinity
thunder on the perimeters

[WIREMAN]

wow....how many in china?
ready for thunder boomers here
train late back once again
u still workin mingo?

[the mingo]

Wireman - different sources gave varying answers to the # of bikes in China but a general consensus is in the neighborhood of half a billion or a bit higher - working for the landlord still but no work last week - was supposed to start a roofing job today but got rained out - maybe tomorrow but more rain in the forecast -

[the mingo]

"Shoes, Bicycle"

Listening to the Japanese night,
the window is closed and the curtain pulled,
I think it is raining outside.
It's comforting. I love the rain.
I am in a city that I have never been before:
Tokyo.
I think it is raining. Then I hear a storm begin.
I'm slightly drunk:

people walking by in the street,
a bicycle.

Tokyo
May 26, 1976 - June 30th, June 30th - Richard Brautigan

[WIREMAN]

RB a hit in japan
they b an art loving people

[the mingo]

He is as you say, even more he is respected there, unlike here in his own country. In Japan you never hear the word "whimsical" used to describe him or his writings. Unlike here. I don't know if that would make him feel better or not.

[the mingo]

shadows now live
in my tracks of yesterday
revealed by the morning sun

On my bike run to the village yesterday I saw more than one homeowner with large piles of fresh-cut firewood on their lawns. Having moved here in February of this year and experienced the unremitting snow & storm of winter on the upland slopes of Tug Hill I am not surprised that two weeks before the midsummer solstice is high time to be stockpiling firewood for the coming winter. The natives know exactly what they are doing.
___________________________________________________________________

For Bell, who tolls,

The sun does not rise,
the earth sinks,
kill first - then listen
in some cases ecstasy is superior
to common drunkenness
but not enough to ruin sleep
being mischievous can lead to
becoming the prey of fishermen
i see them everywhere
going about in their boats
or casting line from the banks of every stream
a man once wrote a book about it
i read it & said to myself, "That's smart!"
i went out and wrote upon a tree,
Trout America - Wheelchair For Sale !

[the mingo]

Empty bottle thrown to the grass half mile from the closest crossroad, sun rising from yesterday's rain puddle ...

Haiku are the original tweets.

haiku air
haiku road
haiku bones

My favorite way to hunt them is from the saddle of a bicycle.

old fences along the river
sagging wire & rotted posts
their builders long long gone

Some are like snakes sunning themselves in the open or sleeping among the stones - some are like birds with striped tails. You can even trip over one going out your door. Some have vast & distant horizons - some are no bigger than a raindrop on a blade of grass & looking for the sea.

Some are crystal clear, others not so. I usually have to stop my bike to put them in my capture book but I'm training myself toward being able to take them on the run without ever having to break my roll, Mongolian style.

A man should always have something to reach for -

I'm coming for you my pretties, & for your little dog Toto too.

[WIREMAN]

new haikoo boogie
------------------------
lets get small
notebook
pencil or pen
bring a little knife
to sharpen the point
all hail the fewest
words
the convey
pure
cut to the chase
the essence
things seen
felt
endured
no time for bullshit
pure essence be the point
sharpened to ecstacy

[the mingo]

I'll second that - twice !!