Critical Mass
 
ONE
 
The long and winding road
That skirts the river valley
Indicates a message to me
 
That though the people
Pray they can ride
It may never truly be free
 
That love and hate
Divide a narrow straight
‘cross which I make my way
 
The path that I know
I rarely go
Teleport the wooded highway
 
I was reared in the urban 
By the street with the bourbon
And my learning curve was steep
 
Critical mass
Should not be a blast
It depends on where you sleep
 
I bashed a hood
In Bonnie Doon
You know he had it coming t’ him
 
No signal and 
City chimes
He cut me off at dinner time
 
He caterwauled, 
“Identity crisis!”
He must not know it’s in my license
 
To be three 
For the price of one
Is to star in the game of violence 
—— 

TWO
 
Get out of my way
What else can I say?
Intelligent malign works the energy mines
 
The spoils on the off-week
The path is off-beat
The kicks we provide and the kicks that I find
 
The city star
Did you know how far
You can go with hundreds of dragging horses?
 
Indentured slavery
In the name of chicanery
We reside above the forces
 
He thinks he’s a car
But he’s surely not
Do they not have a place for this kind of thing?
 
Do they not see
It’s unnecessary
The blockages and the lines they bring
 
The painted corners
And sustained borders
For the wheel bladers and the skateboarders
 
The sign holders
In front of your gate
Are among your spoked, aligned soldiers
 
Do they know 
Whose city it is?
I need it to pick up my kids
 
To put production
In my fridge
With no regard for our missing ridge
 
——

THREE
 
It’s called sidewalk, not sidebike!
What kind of community can’t get home right?
 
And with my teeth jutting
My boot heels cutting
I march towards Normandy and look how I’m pointing!
 
I would never admit
The extent of my tumult
Outside of the classic route of the Catholics
 
Flower bedfellows
I splice blue and yellow
For the New Velodromantics
 
I stop as Disney
I cautionary tale
I world of wonder in the jaws of life
 
I look he in the eyes
So one don’t forget
We are sometimes homologous
 
The thrush is instant and circumspect 
Rough, crashing, absolute in its rend
Road warriors embrace as friend
And all because three came to an end
On gravel in the West End
By the high school of my first girlfriend
In the city where the seasons don’t begin
Apart from the places with the hands to lend
 
In the end
 
We all dissipate
Never regenerate
Wondering if we could make it
To work on time  

Rolland Pemberton (aka Cadence Weapon)’s website. You can buy his latest album. The girls like it!