Poems from the road

 

These are some of the poems that I write while on my bicycle tours. When I’m on a bike tour I spend a lot of time camping out. Sometimes I’m camping out in campgrounds, but more often than not I’m just camping in a field off the road out of the view of anybody. I spend long days on the bicycle and when it comes down to the sun going down if there’s a spot that catches my fancy I will just lay my gear down set up my tent if I need it otherwise just lay my sleeping pad down and sleeping bag, and settle in for a restful sleep on a patch of dirt. I will usually week sometime between two and four in the morning and write something in my journal and periodically gaze up at the Milky Way if the sky is clear or the moon if it’s good enough to come out. Then usually I’ll go back to sleep and wake back up in that moment before night slips away and the sun starts to rise, and it’s that moment were magical things happen. So here are a few poems that I wrote while in a tent in the middle of the night on a patch of dirt laying under the stars of the Milky Way.

Poem -the Bikepacker 

By Bill Poindexter 

"I am pining for the trail

 I cannot help myself

 I want to ride

I eat when I’m hungry, drink when I’m thirsty, 

pare the fat off my soul and live

 simple

Reducing my eating irons to a spork and my life blood

 a cup of coffee.

at the end of the day, with the “right to roam” in my heart, 

I come off the trail 

 any wild place I choose, 

lay my bedding on the cold earth,

 and sleep under the blanket of the Milky Way Galaxy, 

and then, and ONLY then

 will I be set free and when I wake

I do it all over again

I am Bikepacker."

A place to lay my bedding 

By Bill Poindexter 

Been on the road for the day

All day

Up at dawn

Now Dusk waining in my face

Campground too, well, urban 

Town not hospitable 

Visitor center, open from 9-4, after that move on strangers 

Sun is setting fast, I saunter north,

Sun to my left,

There is no panic 

Any patch of dirt will do

I am a Bikepacker 

I wake with sun 

And

Sleep with the set

I travel 6 more miles,

Over 90 miles all told

Road is gravel, familiar 

I like the sound when tires embrace

Gravel 

There, to my left 

A field and a open gate

50 yards from the road

I do not care,

I am tired

I

Feel I have a right to roam the American West 

Private property 

Land once unowned, free

I set up my tent

Watch the sun slip away and stars 

show themselves

As dusk becomes night 

I slip into dreamland 

Satisfied 

Awaiting first light

To ride again 

I am Bikepacker

Soul freedom 

I am bikepacker poem

By Bill Poindexter 

( A first draft after a ride)

I can’t help it

The tug

On my soul

 Soul that is attached 

And unattached 

Chaos

Soaring into space

With massive wings

While playing with old friends 

Gravity and Wind 

Perhaps some Dark Matter

But for now

My bicycle 

Take me where

My other friends 

Serendipity and Chance 

Meet

I am bikepacker