His Wheel Is A Mirror

In one of your English or art classes, you might have seen--or created--examples of "concrete poems".  They're the ones shaped like their subjects:




Il Pleut, by Guillaume Apollinaire, is one of the most famous of its type.  The text of it goes like this:

Il pleut des voix de femmes comme si elles étaient mortes même dans le souvenir

c'est vous aussi qu'il pleut merveilleuses rencontres de ma vie ô gouttelettes

et ces nuages cabrés se prennent à hennir tout un univers de villes auriculaires

écoute s'il pleut tandis que le regret et le dédain pleurent une ancienne musique

écoute tomber les liens qui te retiennent en haut et en bas


Here's a rough translation:

It's raining the voices of women as if they'd died even in memory

and it's raining you as well, the marvelous encounters of my life, O little drops

those rearing clouds begin to neigh a whole universe of auricular cities

listen if it rains while disdain and regret weep to an ancient music

listen to the fall of chains that hold you above and below


Another one of Apollinaire's famous concrete poems is Coeur Couronne Miroir:

Here's the text:

 Mon Coeur pareil a une flamme renversee

Les rois qui meurent tour a tour
Reanaissent au couer des poets

Dans ce miroir je suis enclos vivant et vrai
Comme on imagine les anges
Et non comme sont les reflets

which, in English becomes Heart, Crown and Mirror:

My heart is like an inverted flame

The kings who have died one by one
Are reborn in poets' hearts

In this mirror I am captured alive and true
The way you imagine angels
And not only as a reflection.

I couldn't find anything that would hint at whether or not Apollinaire was a cyclist. Given the time and places in which he lived, however, I imagine he rode a bike for at least some time in his life. 

From Strange Vehicles

If he'd written a concrete poem about a bicycle, would he have said the wheels were mirrors of his heart?  Or would it have been like this?:

By Anwar Choukah

Bicycles And The Rain

The other day, I got home just in time from my seashore ride.  Just after I walked in the door, it began to rain.  It's rather ironic, isn't it, that I spent a couple of hours riding next to an ocean but I was happy to stay dry?


Anyway, it's been raining almost nonstop ever since.  And, I got to thinking about how bikes look when they're out in the rain.

I found this photo on a Flickr page.  It was taken by Andre Wine in the Hardebrucke Station in Zurich, Switzerland.  The next time someone tells you the Swiss are boring or don't have a sense of style, show him or her this photo.  


Plus, I must say, I haven't done a lot of cycling in Switzerland.  But what cycling I did was certainly memorable!  


Anyway, the rain also brings me into the mood of this poem by Guillaume Apollinaire:

The poem, "Il pleut," or "It's Raining," can be translated thus:


It's raining women's voices as if they had died even in memory
It's also raining you,  marvelous encounters in my life, o little drops
Those rearing clouds begin to neigh a whole universe of auricular cities
Listen if it rains while regret and disdain weep to an ancient music
Listen to the bonds falling off that bind you above and below.


Those last two lines are such an apt description of what I've experienced over the last couple of years--and the way I often feel when cycling.  Especially the last line.


Still, I'd prefer that it stop raining, at least for a couple of days--and even if one of my bikes has fenders!