old bike, new year

familiar fragility of the New Year
old balance issues, repressions, reaction
formations, delusions, “the whole boatload
of sensitive bullshit” concatenate to
overwhelm you, shove you back into
the usual dark corners, the isolation wards
of bygone kalpas

but the simple sun and its colors, free air
in predictable orbits and the fresh chill
revive your sluggish mind and ganglia
the old ones, groaning, chant again
in the bare broken branches as you swing down
Baltimore Avenue, calling out the season

you nurse your ancient bicycle, lug it
up the stairs of the Firehouse as though
shouldering an aged parent up the slopes of
Obasuteyama – friendly anarchist takes possession,
promising it fresh life and a new incarnation

free bikes, free people, free streets
old anarchist vistas open before you
in the cold -- frigidity of decaying eons, meat
possessions, dread hierarchies, slave chain gangs
of the mind and body, cosmic evil –- amid sad
detritus, victory chants of new beginnings,
as you swing down Baltimore Avenue