Poetry and Photography by Rhys Hughes
TRY YOUR BRAKES
Try your brakes!
After they have been arrested
for squeaking
you should prosecute them in
court: don’t fret
that you might be thought haughty
or vindictive.
Justice must be done.
The brakes deserve it.
They never gripped the wheel rims
smoothly: they always
screamed for more oil
while you toiled
to keep your balance downhill.
Cats on the path were startled
by the sound. You even found
that pedestrians
jumped in fright
when you attempted to reduce
your speed on slopes.
One hopes they soon recovered.
But enough is enough.
You ought to take
the smooth with the rough.
So wheel your bicycle
into the hallowed halls
where the judge awaits
in an itchy wig
and barristers fan themselves
with cryptic legal documents
as if they meant
to blow themselves away.
The frame of the bicycle
is not on trial
and in a while you will hear
how the wheels
are innocent too: they should
be held dear by you.
But the brakes are scoundrels
through and through!
Try your brakes!
Find them guilty, you are the jury.
Mitigating circumstances
like damsels in romances
dance deceptively
and will put you in a trance.
Heed them not!
Your brakes belong in jail
before they fail
completely and propel you
into me. Hurry!
Try your brakes today.
Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.
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