Brian Docherty

St. Leonards on Sea, UK

 

Brian Docherty is the Beach Bard of St. Leonards. He has published six books,

most recently In My Dreams, Again, (Penniless Press, 2017) and Only In 

St. Leonards: A Year On the Marina (Special sorts Press, 2017).  

 

Poem written of 28^th April 2020

 

Bike

 

This morning I waited till the rain stopped

then I went for a walk and saw a folding

bike in a retro shop; is my concentration

good enough to survive Hastings’ traffic?

 

What would the mermaids think of me

cycling to meet them at Rock-a-Nore?

Would they say ‘Get a motorbike with

a sidecar, you can take us out for the day,

 

one at a time, somewhere different every day’,

a Where they’ve never been before, or I could 

buddy up with the bikers in The Carlisle,

we could take them all out on a proper run,

 

Brighton, Margate, or Devon say, or back

to the Gower for the laver bread they love,

and meet the Welsh bikers, who they would

charm into making a regular delivery run,

 

but their Welsh sisters from Broughton Bay

could visit Hastings once Covid abates,

our human diseases do not affect them,

but even bikers have to obey the law

 

sometimes, and I think the mermaids

understand Live to ride, ride to live,

a life of purpose; theirs is something

they won’t reveal, even to friends