Anthony Orozco

residency location | reading, us
AIR March 24-30, 2020









Excerpt from

Boys Who Pop Wheelies on Bikes Without Breaks Brakes



“. . .

front wheel straight up

like 12 o‘clock

like midnight like catch us midflight

cruising through red lights

broken glass glinting on black pavement,

eyesore , I soar on a clear night sky

Hurtling exclusively the wrong way down one ways,

runaway slaves who repurposed their chains,

no underground rail, only

Washington and Court Streets

provide detour over the train. 

Everything is in transition,

and we are loyal only to the movement

a fearless forward toward the tipping gourd

regardless of and sometimes in opposition to

laws of traffic and laws of survival

drivers suspect assume we’re suicidal

but maybe it just takes more for us to feel afraid,

for us to feel alive,

to feel.

The first people to fly were cyclists

and it is one of the few things

that actually makes sense anymore.

My nose up, wings out,

air 90 pounds per square inch under me

and I feel lifted without gas and I glide past them

neighborhood florists push pedals petals in high fashion,

designer leather but no seat belts to fasten

my nose is up and my wings are out
as I feel like I could spring from Spring to Canal

the street is a clear runway for us takeoff and

BOOM,

my wheel is straight up
like 12 o’clock
like noon

. . . "



The full poem will appear among nearly 100 other entries in the
Pen Street: City of Poems anthology, set to be published by Barrio Alegria on April 3, 2020.
































Last night I wrestled with frustration and disappointment I don't know how this poem is ever going to be finished. I don't see a clear way out of this jumbled maze I've built around me. My vision of the poem distorted, elongated, bent as if in a funhouse mirror. And I have to say, that brings me great excitement. This is how I know I am on the right path, if there is no patch and I have blaze a trail from my heart to my pen, creeping the lush jungle of my thoughts If I had a flare to shoot into the sky I wouldn't pull the trigger. I can't have anyone save me, not right now. Now is when I discover what I am looking for and I dare not make too much noise and scare it away.



























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Anthony Orozco is a bilingual, bicultural journalist, poet, and performer living in Reading, Pennsylvania. He supports local poetry through holding space for creators and for collaborating and crafting poetic performances. His poetry explores his revolving obsessions of rhythm, the mechanics of language, our relationships to one another and the mysteries of spirituality. A portion of his work emphasizes listening as much as reading and his recitations are exhibitions in the spoken word.


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