I Want to Ride My LSD Revisited & Described

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Interesting pome (I hope the second stanza isn't literally true), but it 
doesn't, perhaps wasn't intended to, touch my claim about learning to ride a 
bicycle. The description is nice, but I already know how to ride. The key is 
"wobbled into flight, caught a balance I would never lose." Precisely my 
point. You cannot describe in such a way that I can truly know ahead of time 
just how one wobbles into flight.

Perhaps a second example will make my point more clearly. Describe (in 
propositions, since that is the point) what an orgasm feels like (or just is 
like). You could try to describe it to me, but I have already had one, 
perhaps two. It would be a daunting task indeed to tell someone who has 
never had an orgasm just what one feels like.

Woody Allen went a short way toward this when he said he had never had a bad 
orgasm.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "alice wellintown" <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 13, 2009 4:05 PM
Subject: I Want to Ride My LSD Revisited & Described


>I would like to write a poem
> About how my father taught me
> To ride a bicycle one soft twilight,
> A poem in which he was tired
> And I was scared, unable to disbelieve
> In gravity and believe in him,
> As the fireflies were coming out
> And only enough light remained
> For one more run, his big hand at the small
> Of my back, pulling away like the gantry
> At a missile launch, and this time, this time
> I wobbled into flight, caught a balance
> I would never lose, and pulled away
> From him as he eased, laughing, to a stop,
> A poem in which I said that even today
> As I make some perilous adult launch,
> Like pulling away from my wife
> Into the fragile new balance of our life
> Apart, I can still feel that steadying hand,
> Still hear that strong voice telling me
> To embrace the sweet fall forward
> Into the future's blue
> Equilibrium. But,
>
> Of course, he was drunk that night,
> Still wearing his white shirt
> And tie from the office, the air around us
> Sick with scotch, and the challenge
> Was keeping his own balance
> As he coaxed his bulk into a trot
> Beside me in the hot night, sweat
> Soaking his armpits, the eternal flame
> Of his cigarette flaring as he gasped
> And I fell, again and again, entangled
> In my gleaming Schwinn, until
> He swore and stomped off
> Into the house to continue
> Working with my mother
> On their own divorce, their balance
> Long gone and the hard ground already
> Rising up to smite them
> While I stayed outside in the dark,
> Still falling, until at last I wobbled
> Into the frail, upright delight
> Of feeling sorry for myself, riding
> Alone down the neighborhood's
> Black street like the lonely western hero
> I still catch myself in the act
> Of performing.
>
> And yet, having said all this,
> I must also say that this summer evening
> Is very beautiful, and I am older
> Than my father ever was
> As I coast the Pacific shoreline
> On my old bike, the gears clicking
> Like years, the wind
> Touching me for the first time, it seems,
> In a very long time,
> With soft urgency all over.
>
> --bilgere
>


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