BUCKETED [poem]

Photo (c) Liza Béar 2016

The man with two blue buckets

One inside the other, a snug fit
Strapped to the back of his rickety
hard-to-start motorbike

For a paint job he said

A few minutes later down the mountain road
In the same shot without a cut
Now stands with his feet in one bucket
The other over his head
Dolefully counting numbers in Mandarin

The thugs who locked his bike
Stole his binoculars
Have sped off with a roar
Perhaps like the motorcyclists 
Courted by Drumpf in Washington DC

You see

it’s hard to forget that image
b/c

in a comic strip of Grand Union
Let’s see . . Buffalo ...1973

Dancer Barbara Dilley says

 
I'm bucketed

She stands in a bucket
Hers an improvisational choice

On the bike path from the Metrograph
Under the leafy boughs spilling
Over the fence on Chrystie Street
I ride past

       stop, and turn my head
a jaunty gorse yellow taxi cab, parked
Not one of the ubiquitous funereal Uber limos
Its For Hire light on

Facing Mecca flat on the ground
At an angle in front of the cab
A fringed, vividly purple prayer mat
The driver is standing at one end
Then crouches down in prayer position
But not for long gets up again
Up down  up down  repeating the ritual
For fear of losing a fare

© Liza Béar 2016