A big thank you to all the writers who took up the challenge of Ekphrastic Challenge #1 2026. Entries closed on Sunday, 25 January, 2026. We received a wonderful range of imaginative, thought-provoking responses to the provided image. Some contributors were first-timers, others familiar names. Your support is valued and appreciated.
For those wishing to read about Amsterdam’s Flowerbikeman, go here. (Thank you, David Bridge, for bringing this to our attention.)
The following writers have had their response to Ekphrastic Challenge #1 2026 published below:
Allan Barden, Joanna Desborough, Jenny Eddy, Rhonda Hyder, Hilary Guest, John Heritage, Christine Scheiner, Fran O’Mara, Olympia Koziaris, Dulara Jayasekara, Jan Price, Zoe Sanders, Ian Stewart, Mary Szymanski, Danny Neal, Adam Stone, Guenter Sahr, Geoff Gaskill, Ian Chisholm, Scott Hunt, Deb Lucas, Coral Reeve, Denise Main, Glenyse Robins-Ward, David Bridge, Steve Gray, Howard Osborne, Helen Hewitt, Jean Pearce, Kerstin Lindros, Lynne Cullen, Russell Abbott, Lynne Tatam, Ian Henricus, Bev Blaskett and Rosi Kurt.
Please note that all responses have been published this month. For future challenges, a selection of up to 20 responses only will be published.
Please, take the time to read and enjoy their responses.
Just Along For the Ride
The man lifted me from the rack to the shop floor and tested my weight. He spoke of towpaths and lanes, of morning rides and afternoons at riverside pubs. He squeezed my brakes, adjusted my saddle, nodded. I was fit for purpose.
I was secured to the barge a few hours later. There were two of us, locked together by chain at the stern. On the river we moved continuously. Locks raised and lowered us. Bridges passed overhead. Villages, fields and towns slid by.
Each morning the owners came out with mugs of tea and stood near us. They spoke of the weather, of water levels and where they might stop next. Once, the woman rested her hand on my shoulder and looked, seemingly dreamily, along the towpath. The man glanced away. The engine started.
Cyclists passed us often. Their legs and panniers marked with mud. I noted their used tyres and frames. We were cleaner than all of them.
The river changed around us. Spring loosened its grip and gave way to rain. Rain flattened the towpath and left the barge smelling of damp rope. Leaves collected unannounced in my spokes, though I had not moved. My chain was rusting slightly where it rested against my frame.
At locks, people sometimes asked questions. ‘Do you ever take them off?’ one man asked, nodding towards us. The answer was always provisional. ‘We mean to,’ or ‘Soon,’ or ‘When we get a stretch that suits.’ The gates opened. The water shifted. We rose or fell accordingly.
I remain where I am. My tyres hold their shape. My spokes keep their tension. My brakes in good order. If one morning the chain was removed, I would know what to do.
Until then I travel by river.
Allan Barden
The Wheels of Time
Tick tick tock,
The pram takes me down the street.
Tick tick tock,
My scooter takes me to the park.
Tick tick tock,
My bike takes me to my friend’s house.
Tick tick tock,
The bus takes me to school.
Tick tick tock,
The Vespa takes me over the cobblestones.
Tick tick tock,
My car takes me through a drive-thru.
Tick tick tock,
The trolley takes me through the aisle.
Tick tick tock,
The train takes me to visit my niece.
Tick tick tock,
The wheelchair takes me to the bathroom.
Tick tick tock,
The hearse takes my body to its final resting place.
Joanna Desborough
Waiting for Annie
Amsterdam is often called the “Venice of the North” with its 100 kilometres of canals and 1500 bridges. My favoured canal is the Prinsengracht, or the Prince’s Canal, named for the Prince of Orange. It’s near what was once the Jewish Quarter, where Anne lived on the Westermarkt and it’s here that I wait for her wraith-like reappearance. My clocks count down the minutes of her return. She promised me that together we’d find a cuckoo clock to complete my collection.
Persecuted for their religious beliefs and fearing for their lives her family lived in the secret annex behind the Opetka Factory during the war. Locked away from the world, hiding from the Nazis.
Back then, Anne used to come to me in the night-time, hidden by the darkness. Sometimes her sister, Margot, came too. Can you blame them for taking this risk? Young girls, innocent of the world, locked away all day. Committed to silence for survival.
Anne said she just needed to breath in the fresh air and feel the breeze on her face and ruffling her hair as we cycled along the cobblestones beside the canal. She’d appear at 8 o’clock in the evening and we would often cycle to the countryside to see the tulips highlighted in the moonlight.
Or if she came at 10 o’clock we’d content ourselves riding around the streets, staying in the shadows passing the Westerkerk church and the Hotel Pulitzer, imagining the people sleeping inside.
Over the years she has come to me in spirit form. These days if midnight comes and she hasn’t appeared I know it is another night of missed opportunities for us. But I will keep on waiting. We need to find a cuckoo clock.
Time will tell what happens …
Jenny Eddy
Death Before Christmas
Father Time left his bike beside the Amstel. He went to collect yellow tulips for her; her favourite colour. I knew the bike belonged to him because when I saw it, time stopped perfectly still. The reality of my beloved aunt’s death froze the moment …
That time when she led me riding on the little Shetland pony …
That time she gifted me my very first grown-up pearl ring …
That time when bereft of my mother, she showed me how to make hospital corners …
The time she pointed and laughed at the spider web corners in my home …
The time she punctured my heart when she asked me not to call everyday as he was dying …
The innumerable times when her anticipated arrival would cause a panic of house cleaning …
That time she wept at the tragedy of her greatest loss …
That time when she yearned for the consolation offered by my grandchild …
That time when she posed as a Degas ballerina and let us photograph her …
All those times when she joined in the fun of our dress-ups …
All those walks in the gardens …
All those offers to help when times were difficult …
I closed my eyes to hold onto the moments, but …
When I looked again, I knew the bicycle would be gone
For just a few seconds, all those important moments were there, as clear as day.
And then,
Time moved on
And she was indelibly gone!
Rhonda Hyder
Flow
They said there was
no time to dawdle.
‘Hurry, hurry,
for the clock is ticking –
too much to do!’
But it is in the daydreams
that my spirit surges:
the ferny walks,
the crashing waves,
the shy echidna,
the ecstatic seaside dog.
I came from nature
and to her I will return.
She has her rhythms
and her imperatives.
I do not want my epitaph to read:
She Got Everything Done.
Hilary Guest
changing time to act in time
each clock
illuminates
how little
time is left
in our world
acting
inappropriately
brought
climate change
for clocks to turn
back
peddle in reverse
by changing the way
you live
John Heritage
Time Flies
Tendrils of morphine seep through him, bringing something fluid and beautiful into his body. The air in the room changes and his sadness crosses the room like a soft breeze, pulling memories that peel him open. He sees her pale grey eyes and frantic movement to avoid a collision but it’s too late, their bicycles mesh and both are thrown onto the bridge. He’s lost the moment their eyes meet.
A stillness settles over him as if he has already gone, but he can see her and feel her, as though she didn’t leave him 10 months ago. Like she is here sitting with him and not laying in a box in the ground.
He lets the morphine embrace him and take him back to Amsterdam, where 50 years ago a slip of a girl broke his arm and his bike, and stole his heart. Wonders where those years have gone, and how he endured these last slow months without her. How the time has passed so quickly with each year getting shorter, but 10 months without her is 10 months too long. He promised to love her till death do us part, but he could not stop loving her just because she was dead.
The Palliative Care nurse gently holds his thin wrist, listening to him whispering for his wife to come back, but no words he offered could ever be enough to bring her back from where she had gone. Although he’ll soon be back by her side, where he belongs.
His breathing falters and it won’t be long before he can make good on his promise.
Christine Scheiner
Maps For Epilepsy
1.
Your mind has slipped
Prismatically through
Time cocooned and trapped
Over the slow flow trickle
Of the fractal flood
I am stirred to dam this whole
Cyclical spiraling forward world.
2.
Can all beside her see
Butterfly wings whisper
across the helically
Flowered spectral chasm?
3.
Scattered in your
Multiplicity of oneness
tapped tickle of timeless torrent
tocked in spasm against
Locked brain
Seized minutiae of minutes
And seconds and hours
Of talked and walked
Wakefulness lost.
4.
Flicker of electric brain
Spasmodically discharged
Down memoryless neural paths
Discarded
Until gyreless
Your gimbaled mind surfaces
To swim the current again.
5.
My lost love let
My time laden wheels reel
You home
My lost love let
My axle spin your axons
Signal my love trance
Transmission
My lost love let
My capture of capricious
Time trace the path to
My lost love.
Fran O’Mara
time Ltd
The global slog, indoctrinated
catchphrase: time is money
you clock on, charge and bill
by the hour, the minute … go on
Who owns time?
easy, sold to the highest bidder
that’s your choice. What!?
gotta make a living
No time to waste
gotta go, rush to make that call
send that email, close the deal
make a win … need this win
Spin your wheels
buy new stuff, turned to junk
build bigger, tunnel, quarry landfill
pay the tax, step on the planet
Urgent fake food, must eat
dispatch humans to congested perils
a big parade of brands on bikes
you ingest numbers, sugar, salt n’ sh*t
Wake up. Rise
rinse and repeat
drinks before eleven? SURE!
appropriate a client’s time zone
No time to think
no time to be
drifting off, lost bearings
WOW. Shiny! found more coin
What’s a good life?
what’s it’s worth?
quantity versus quality
Time. Limited. Squandered?
With Sincerity,
To Contemplate
Olympia Koziaris
Clockwork Boy
Every day, Clockwork Boy rides the roads downtown, pedalling on his patchwork bike of timepieces, a mosaic of mismatch, some gleaming silver edges, some green tinged bronze, some white-faced, some rusted, some gold-edged, all broken. They rattle, attached somewhat astoundingly precariously yet firmly as he speeds over pavement.
“Hullo, Clockwork Boy!” citizens say as he rails on by. Ignorantly, he shuns them, whizzing past in an analog blur.
He’s always efficient—smooth, fast, steady-paced. Like a well-oiled machine, all throughout his journey until he reaches his destination.
He discharges at the bridge every day, racing clock tyres brought to a screeching halt and leaned gingerly against the railing.
It is there, by the bridge, in the strange glow of amber lamplight, he places one splayed hand on his chest, fingers unnaturally cold. He closes his eyes to drown all the world out.
And then he hears it.
A cold, mechanical ticking, a rhythmic beat to mimic the heart.
His eyes fly open. I imagine anyone watching would be unnerved at his dead stare and straight-set mouth as he thumps his hand still in position once against his chest before he slams it again, with enough force to knock the wind out of his sails.
This time, when it connects, his fingers dig in, and in a burst of blood a hole is caved in.
Gingerly, reverently, he pulls out a clock, glass cracked and smeared with crimson, fingers dripping obscenely scarlet.
“You’ve fulfilled your use, old friend.” He stares down at the used clock, cradled in his bloody hands, and drops it over the side of the bridge into the water. There’s no splash.
He then places a new one inside his chest. With the cavity filled, his skin seals itself.
But he’ll never be whole.
Never again.
Dulara Jayasekara
Out of Time
Oh Tic Tock Tic Tock
Flowerman Flowerman
Bikes on Bridges
Hands on times
too many wrong times
too many half times
even more quarter times
and what’s that keyboard
butterfly and pink flower
got to do with any Time!
But jokes aside –
the rhythm of my heart
is totally confused!!!
Jan Price
Untitled
The
day arrived when she finally threw her leg over the railing and jumped.
Her
mute body made a slow circle in the water as the sirens began to wail. We rose from our desks, insurance claims in abeyance, and murmured to each other about pity and shame and whether anyone wanted tea.
For
years we had been quietly disconcerted by the lady who relentlessly cycled back and forth across the bridge. Her bike was so heavily laden with
clocks
that her front wheel wobbled from side to side, and we wondered within ourselves if maybe this time she wouldn’t make it. She would stop here and there to touch her toes to the asphalt as the weight of all that time begged her bike to rest on the pavement.
We
tucked our heads toward our phones if we ever encountered her in person. It was not good etiquette to be late for work and besides we hadn’t much patience for a madwoman wailing about the space-time continuum.
But
the day her bike lay unoccupied on the bridge, a strange memory came to rest in my mind.
A
young couple stand in the centre of that bridge, chest to chest, hair whipping in the wind. Cyclists and pedestrians swerve to avoid them, and she clutches his shirt-front in her hands and he gently tucks some strands of hair behind her ear, and they stare
at each other with expressions unfamiliar to me, completely oblivious to the mayhem they’ve caused to the people around them.
I
remember the man had his hand resting on the seat of a golden bicycle, and noticing a clock where the bell should be and thinking this was odd, and then being called into the bosses office to start my new life in insurance.
Zoe Sanders
Cycle of Time
If I could only stop the march of time
Leave it standing still at signal red
Then I could write forever words sublime
Not clock-watching, a habit early bred
But life’s Reality is elbow-near
Telling me that time is slipping by
I must obey. The message crystal clear
‘Urgency of action. Must comply.’
Time’s cycle: saddle, pedal, chain
So inviting! I could jump aboard
And leave the world to worry yet again
I’d ride away and give my cares the sword
But I must pause, face stark Reality
And sadly join in life’s banality
Ian Stewart
Flower Bike Man
Flower Bike Man disappeared. In the early hours when traffic slept, he launched from the bridge to greet the river below.
He’d cycled much of his life, always with a smile to hide his broken heart. With a wave to the photo takers and double takers, mouths open in silent ‘wows’. Tick, tick, pause, tick.
They weren’t interested in him, instead his look-at-me bicycle, with its clock-face bouquets smothering the wheels and the varied timepieces growing like sunflowers front and back. And the basket overflowing with colourful blooms though the awkward wooden sign wedged in the rear wheel, heralding ‘Flower Bike Man’ looked out of place. What the?
If he just kept moving, peddling all those good vibes, waves and smiles, perhaps his heart would repair with time. All that freaking exercise had to be a good for something, right? Nup.
One of his clichéd friends once said, ‘Time heals, mate.’
‘No it don’t,’ Flower Bike Man yelled in an uncharacteristic display of anger. After all, time was just the blink of the eye. Didn’t matter how far you travelled to escape. Didn’t matter how many years one existed. Life was still painful.
As he stopped in the middle of the bridge, basket vacant, Flower Bike Man thought about love and how much he’d distributed over his life and figured it was more than enough. Where was the reciprocation though, he wondered? A tear struggled to escape his left eye. He was goddamn empty. The warehouse was bare.
He patted the handlebars of his most beautiful bicycle. The night stagnant as he gazed up river at the quaint brick buildings either side, closed to the likes of someone like him.
Flower Bike Man climbed the rails, sat there and waited. Until the time was right. Until his time had come.
Mary Szymanski
Time Travel
I don’t travel through time
I travel with time
Clocks tick
as my gears click
Many faces turn as I pass by
moving at their own pace
My hands are on the brakes
The clocks start to break under my weight
The chain rotates,
I travel so fast that time seems to fly
and so do I
Gripping tight as the handlebars point to the sky
This bike wasn’t designed to hold so many hands
It is held down by the works of man
I’ll need to lose track of time
to find my way back along the winding road
I count as the seconds pass like they are borrowed
I set an alarm for tomorrow
Maybe then I can follow the route home.
Danny Neal
The Time Bandit
He calls himself the FLOWERBIKEMAN, but it’s a ruse. Don’t believe it for a second. Subterfuge.
Be fooled once by him, and you’ll wonder where the days go. They’ll hustle by, and you’ll barely know how you got there.
Be fooled by him twice, and the weeks will start to fizz by. You’ll be forever rushed, scrambling your way here and there, being pulled to and fro, and for the life of you, won’t know how it happened. How the months start to gallop along, and you’ll have no control of the reins. At every annual milestone, you’ll think, it doesn’t seem a year since …
If he fools you a third time (and believe me, we have seen cases of it), it’s beyond ugly. Worst of all, there’s no reversing it. We even had a case where a man was late to his own funeral. Can you imagine? His soul forever in the nether, unclaimed by either Heaven or Hell. We named the case ‘Mr Inbetween’.
I’m sorry, where are my manners? I haven’t even introduced myself. My name is Hendrik Bakker, and I am Head of a special taskforce established within DSI, based in Amsterdam. The taskforce has been operating for over a year now – or is it two? – but only seems like yesterday we became aware of The Time Bandit, as we’ve dubbed him. We’ve taken occupation of a fourth-floor apartment overlooking the Amstel River, where we can keep an eye on his modus operandi – a bicycle locked to a bridge railing. It may look innocent enough, if not unusual, covered in timepieces, but we believe it to be the Time-Abducter from an ancient Dutch fable, which can travel along the waterways of the Netherlands.
Excuse me, but I must get going – I’m late for a briefing.
Adam Stone
It is time to rid the world of this tyrant
Rid this world of Time!
Shed its exactitude of measured cost and labour.
Banish artificed chronometers of any kind.
Let us get back to simpler times
when a day’s length was measured by the rising and
setting of the sun,
day’s noontime by the Angelus pealing of the parish bells.
Let church steeples act as the loci of communication cells.
Let us confine Time to the beating of the heart
from its arrythmia to the rapidity of summer love.
Toss Time into the canal
and let us play our joyous role with cap and bells.
Guenter Sahr
Santa’s Bike
The little boy sat up in bed.
‘Come on, Eddie,’ his father said. ‘Time for sleep.’
Eddie pouted. ‘I want you to tell me a story first,’ he mumbled.
‘A story?’ Eddie’s dad stroked his chin, looking at the rows of books on Eddie’s bookshelf. ‘Maybe there’s something in here,’ he said taking down a large sized volume.
He opened the pages, slowly flipping one after another as he perused the contents. ‘Here’s something,’ he said.
Eddie craned his neck. ‘What is it?’ he asked looking at a picture in the book.
‘It’s Santa Claus’ bicycle.’
Eddie frowned. ‘Bicycle? I thought Santa lived at the North Pole,’ he said. ‘I’ve never heard of him riding a bike.’
‘He does live at the North Pole,’ his father told him. ‘But this is a picture of his bicycle from when he was young. All those clocks on the bicycle were put there to remind him not to forget how time passes so Santa wouldn’t ever miss an appointment. Important for later when he delivers presents on Christmas Eve. Neat, hey?’
‘If Santa has a bike,’ Eddie reasoned, his brow furrowing, ‘why does he need the reindeer and a sleigh?’
‘That’s a good question,’ the father told his son. ‘Santa’s dad gave him the reindeer and sleigh so he could take over the family business to deliver presents on Christmas Eve. Get it?’
Eddie’s frown deepened. ‘Not really.’
Eddie’s dad closed the book. ‘Think of it this way,’ he said. ‘Santa rides a bike only when he’s learning. Just like you. When you get older, you’ll get to drive a car like me. Santa’s car, when he grew up, was a sleigh with nine reindeer. Now. Time for sleep.’
Eddie’s dad kissed his son before pulling up the blankets. ‘Sleep tight.’
Geoff Gaskill
A Timeless Ride
I’m a Madman. You don’t dig? Try the 7 series, 92 episodes, on video. After twenty-five years working in NYC, helping persuade people to spend money on junk they don’t really need, I decide it’s time for a break.
Touring the country of my ancestors, eyes scanning, wide open, camera ready, as always, I wallow in the sheer beauty of Keukenhoff Tulip Gardens, an outrageously colourful Spring show. Another spectacular sight is Friday cheese market in Alkmaar. The Nikon runs hot in my hands. I live in the visual world; I’m an artist, even though I’ve sold my artistic integrity to the commercial world. Got to make a living and I love the buzz, man.
I’m now in Amsterdam, a completely different world, the city of bicycles, just wandering about, camera ready.
I blink. Is this real? Leaning against a fence, a bicycle, of the many thousands in Amsterdam, it’s like no other. I stare hard, long, taking in every detail. It is covered, literally covered, from sprocket to spokes, wheel hubs, rear parcel rack to handlebars. The owner’s imaginative flair immediately sparks mine. The Nikon film spool whirs; I must capture this amazing object. It will stir the creative minds in our Advertising studio on Madison Avenue. I can already see possibilities for the right clients.
What an attention grabber. My photograph and an appropriate lead line.
Time to Decide,
Your time is Precious.
Time for the Ride of Your Life.
Now’s the Time to Make a Choice.
Time for Action.
For the Time of Your Life.
Could be the killer ad. of the year.
Funny thing though. I scanned that bicycle microscopically and I couldn’t see one working clock showing me the correct time. Maybe the owner sees time as just a huge throw away gag.
Ian Chisholm
Amsterdam
He awoke to find her gone, her scent still fresh upon the pillow next to his. A note on the kitchen bench with a single word.
Sorry.
The tail of the Y formed a little love heart. A reminder she still loved him.
He stood, struck still, trying to imagine where she might have gone. He could think of only one place. The place she had been happiest.
Amsterdam.
Her city of magic, she called it. A place where dreams came true. They’d rented an apartment on the Herengracht. Each morning he’d rise early and let her sleep while he fetched breakfast from the local deli. He’d climb the steep stairs to the third story apartment to make coffee and bring her bread, cheese, and jam. After breakfast they’d make love and laugh at how wonderful life was.
During the day they wandered aimlessly and dreamt of living on houseboats. They embraced as countless bikes fizzed by, bells trilling to warn them out of the way. At night they explored the red light district; the sweet, resiney smell of dreams hanging thick in the air. She would hold him tight as they peered at painted women framed in illuminated windows.
She’d always wanted to return to her city of dreams. He promised one day they would – when the time was right. But that time never seemed to arrive.
They’d love each other for such a long time but she’d grown distant of late. He sometimes wondered at this but never imagined she would leave.
Now it was clear she had given up waiting to return to her city of dreams.
He knew he would need to follow her there if he had any hope of ever seeing her again.
It was time to return.
To Amsterdam.
Scott Hunt
there is
no such thing as time
everything is presence
the Universe has no clock
a human concept
time and measurement
made to contain
to make sense
in the human brain
the Universe is energy
folding and unfolding
itself
infinitely
when you let go
you unlock
you unfold
you discover
yourself.
Deb Lucas
She rides in time
She is a clock.
She is a human being.
She is everything and nothing in between.
Most of the time she runs like the inside of a grandmother clock.
All the mechanisms working tick by tick, dawn to dusk hand by hand.
She chimes in on the hour so you will hear her. Even if it’s a small glance from you to check what time it is, she will still sound for your presence.
Her outside like the antique Ghost gum wood curved and etched from the clock maker and only observed by the horologist.
She knows that her pendulum swings on show for you.
She knows that you wind her heart up with your key. She knows your worth to her is greater than time.
Her only purpose to you is for use, not to be kept.
She knows that by her hands covering her face that she is only as human as the numbers calculating her fate.
Coral Reeve
Wanderlen Poets
Wildemar Pammenkoek waxed his elegant moustache, plaited his white hair and donned his tall black hat. He chose the honey-coloured coat, lined with a tapestry to harmonise with the outside carpet of autumn leaves.
Clicking shut the red door of his little house he turned to his time machine bicycle and checked each clock, set to his calculations. They must be exact, he musn’t be late.
Tucking his green trouser cuffs into his red socks he quickly peddled along the winding path to the canal barge. Wildemar and the boatman exchanged knowing nods as he boarded. The boatman leaned into the pole; the ancient barge moved slowly into deep water.
Wildemar adjusted his goggles, the boatman dipped the barge into the water. Wildemar, perched on his bicycle, slid down into the glassy depths. The current swept them through swaying reeds, blue-green fish and huge translucent bubbles floated by. Two alarm clocks rang his destination.
The Wandering Poets were on the golden beach, waiting. Parking his bicycle, he retrieved his pen and pad and joined the Procession of Discovery
The poets, like a surreal vision traversing an ocean path, thoughtfully observed everything they saw.
A monstrous, purple, orange-beaked bird emblazoned with clockwork wheels and time pieces loomed, being fed fish by a cormorant. An elongated man swept by, red coat billowing, gold wheels and elipses spinned in his wake. Seas disappeared, desert dunes rose, multicoloured creatures propelled by clockwork gear trains, appeared and disappeared. Later, a clock-face moon rose, a twin-headed bird whistled, time to depart on its tail feathers carriage.
Pedalling against the current, Wildemar reached the waiting barge and then back to the little house for a tea of pancakes. Before bed, Wildemar reset the time machine clocks ready for the morrow’s procession with the Wanderlen Poets.
Denise Main
The Collection
Jim had been a clock collector for many years, and now he had decided to show off his clocks for all to see. The clock bike collection sitting overlooking the still waters of the canal made people think that numbers are all around as time goes by.
What a creative mind Jim had. Who would have thought that his bicycle would be the ideal apparatus that would show them off. The roundness of the wheels would be enhanced by the larger clocks, but none told the time to the visitors on the bridge, and still, they were intrigued by the different clocks he had placed all over the bicycle as they looked closely at them.
Occasionally, he placed a small clock to break the trend, but mostly his round clocks were there to extend the variety. Not one of them showed the actual time if they had hands to show, but it kept the people guessing which one was really going it alone. The visitors would often turn their heads and place an ear to each clock just to find the standalone clock ticking.
Jim considered his bicycle more of a flower arrangement that showcased his clocks, which were so noticeable when you looked more closely, especially the covered-in wheels.
As the day went on, and many more people stopped, looked bemused and took photos of Jim’s Bike of Clocks, it was now time for him to ride it home. You could hear him from miles away with the jingling and jangling of the clocks and when the wind whistled through the wheels as he sped down the hill. It was Jim’s daily ritual, and with a good rest each night, he would start back up the hill to put his Bike of Clocks on show for another day.
Glenyse Robins-Ward
Love is the cure
Here in this city of clocks and waterways, where trade and punctuality are prized, see a pathway wrought of love and imagination to guide a partner safely home. Where once the fevered spice trade held sway, navigating celestially from Java to the docks of Brouwersgracht, now simpler whimsical signposts point the way for precious cargo, the Flower Bike Man’s epileptic wife, Michelle.
On purposefully narrow streets where cycles hold sway, a level landscape hosts thousands daily pedalling, blending rich and poor, pursuing work and leisure. In a country with more bikes than people, redundancy and abandonment of these machines is rife. No wonder then this artist, Warren Gregory, creates in materials so easily to hand, transforming items that would otherwise go to waste into conveyances that stand out like blossom to a bee.
Flowers are, of course, another piece of Amsterdam’s colourful history. The tulip mania of the seventeenth century has been succeeded by a transfer of affection to the daisy, recently voted the Dutch national flower and often a striking part of these bike creations. Indeed, some look like an advertisement for the floating flower market, Bloementmarket, on the Singel canal.
Although Michelle’s affliction has bound her increasingly to their houseboat home, Warren’s philosophy that ‘Love is the cure’, has been embraced by a wide community encouraging him to create ever more fascinating pieces of public art to cheer city dwellers and visitors alike. Hundreds of them now dot the landscape chained to railings amidst the myriad bike parks along the waterways. Despite occasional commissions, Warren is far from rich, and content that he can continue to support himself and Michelle and bring joy to those who appreciate his artistry.
David Bridge
Bike time
I had been past this bike a bunch of times, and a bunch of tourists would stop and photograph it, as if it had some significance. I guess it did; someone felt it probably held some artistic merit. To others, it might simply be a curio, some comment about time, judging from all the clocks adorning it.
I felt it was a fleeting curio, I figured at some stage someone would do what is often done in Amsterdam and throw it in the canal. Another labour of love, or otherwise, that someone with more time on their hands than was warranted put this thing together.
I didn’t care for it much, at first glance, yeah, nah, a curio. But after a while, I began to see it as a bit more. What was it that caused people to stop, look and photograph it?
Was it the setting? Was it that Amsterdam has so many bikes, and this one stood out for its decoration? Or was it that this item had some deeper cultural connection I didn’t know about? Huh, suddenly this ‘bike’ was consuming some of my ‘brain space’ in an intriguing way.
I asked a friend about it, any deeper-level cultural connection? Brian had a solid knowledge of countercultural things, so he should know. I flipped the photo from my phone towards him, yep, I had succumbed to taking a photo myself. Brian looked, leaned in, squinted his eyes and said. ‘Ya the time bike, some art gallery has something to do with it. And they sell prints of it online … But it’s more of a decorative thing.’
Well, that was that, a decorative timepiece. Perhaps there’s scope for a creative soul to make up some fascinating counterculture story about it.
Steve Gray IN MIJN TIJD
I do still have a soft spot for Amsterdam
Many Dutch do display a certain manner
Showing some discomfort with any flim-flam
Local navigation needs a route planner
Yet proud of history, a culture on the edge
Some may be hesitant to wave a banner
More cycles than people, multistorey parks
Canals, bridges, and a nod to Rembrandt too
The red light district can cause a few remarks
Time is ever important to most, it’s true
An electric bike on a bridge, says it all
Clocks show timezones, no market waits for you
I lived and worked in banking there, years ago
Enough of tulips, I miss the gin, you know
Howard Osborne
Time
Time, time
Precious time
Eyes on the clock
Busy, busy
Out of time
Tick, tick, tock
Take time
To pause, to reflect
To breathe
Take time to love
To grow
And to grieve
Time does not stand still
Step up and embrace
Your unique journey
Through joy and pain,
through loss and gain,
With optimism and grace
Helen Hewitt
dissonance
jazz dreams of clocks, metal hoops, bike wheels,
baskets of iris and orchid, sunlit piazzas of Florence, the rhythm of an acoustic guitar.
/she wakes to the gentle nudge of her dog, nugget and
the whiff of barbequed fish from the barge next door,
the musty tannin canal and its dark flow/
high on a bridge above the barge the flower bike man appears,
pushing baskets of flowers towards the markets,
whistles a tune that reminds her of the days before she travelled.
each wheel of his bike has a clock.
each clock points to a different time.
/ they set off to the foundry to sculpt the iron tree
follow leaves and petals strewn across her path/
a woman hangs sheets on a clothesline above the street with a carnation
perched in her tangle of raven hair/
white magnolia explodes from a waiter’s shirtfront/
customers at the café banter;
his ventriloquist cortege quips and jokes
as they stop for coffee/
further up the street two children carry back packs
with plumages of long silver leaves bent like harps.
/jazz feels the pull of the flower man’s song leading her on,
the tick of his clocks seems to beat inside her heart,
she hurries up the stairs of the foundry eager to start.
looped through the iron doorhandle
tulips the colour of the sky above the canal at dawn.
red as the slash of rusted metal.
dissonance
Jean Pearce
Falling Apart
Brad kneels in front of his once shiny time machine. Like him, it’s only a shadow of its former self. He used to be Action Man, with clarity, foresight, confidence, and the future in his hands. Was able to see the snags, backtrack and fix the tangles along the way.
Now, amongst a scattered trail of pieces, his eyes glide from part to part. He caresses those that are still intact with gentle hands, and now he can see the journey clearly―almost six o’clock, eight, ten to one. Five to one … Each of the time pieces takes him back to a place and time. In the moment, he didn’t sense the looming slide. The warnings were there, but what is now hindsight started, as always, with blind-sight.
Midnight came, the big gong, then the dawning of a sickening feeling―too late.
Today, for the first time in ages, more threads come flooding back, a thousand moments, all fragments. If only I could go back. I’d know what to do. His shoulders droop and his head slumps forward, like almost every day for weeks. And again, he curls up and drifts into a fitful sleep.
But this time, the morning light beams hope through the window pane. He pulls his aching body up and drags his feet to get the tools. He can’t keep falling. That’s not him. He must get back up on the bike before more time melts away. To rebuild. Slowly. And this time he’ll get the balance right.
Kerstin Lindros
Lamentation of the Bike
The trees are bare, skies an ominous grey and I remain vulnerable, miserable, alone.
I am no longer a machine with purpose. I am not a living thing but nor am I dead. Instead, I am adorned. Is this making fun of the bicycle? My purpose, my duty—to transport a person from one place to another has been ridiculed and satirised. What do you call this? A beautification? Like a dog dressed in pyjamas, like a poodle with ruffles around its neck, I have no dignity. Now with no purpose, nothing to live for any longer, I have become an attraction to be stared at, a machine lost in time, once measured by usefulness but now obsolete, worthless.
I was lovingly created by a worker’s hands. Hands that were gnarled like the trunk of a tree, hands that loved the object they created. Each spoke attached to my wheel with precision and dedication. Time was of no issue, the perfection of the machine the only thing that mattered. But now, now I am a spectacle. Something that is the source of mirth, the source of unwanted attention.
‘Look at me,’ I say, ‘I have been silenced, immobilised like the clocks that adorn me.’
I am a machine but was once a treasured creation. My tyres were kept plump and pumped. My handlebars, pure polished chrome. Cobwebs were wiped from my frame. My chain was oiled ensuring my movement was lithe and supple like a tiger languidly pacing. Housed in the hallway of a beautiful heritage building, I never rang my bell, I remained dignified.
But wait, I hear footsteps. The Flower Bike Man returns. Oh hear my earnest pleas. Heave me into the canal, the graveyard of all dedicated bicycles. Let me rust in peace with my friends.
Lynne Cullen
A Bicycle Built for Two
Sue parked her bicycle at the RAF Benson WW2 museum ready to receive visitors.
First in was an older gentleman who wished her G’Day, smiled and wandered off. His progress was slow, inspecting every exhibit in detail. Sue was intrigued. She introduced herself. He replied, ‘I’m Jack from Australia.’
Jack told Sue of being stationed there, flying missions as a Flight Engineer, only to be shot down and become a POW. He was “knocked about a bit” and later repatriated back home for further medical treatment.
As they ambled along Jack abruptly stopped, looking pale. Sue panicked assuming he was ill.
However, he said, ‘Sorry to startle you. I built that tandem bike there in-between missions for a very special lady. She was part of the Air Transport Auxiliary, delivering fighters and bombers from factories to airfields. Never could see how such a petite and beautiful young lady could fly these big brutes.
‘We named the tandem bike Daisy. Well, we used to ride out for picnics, to a pub or a warm barn if the weather was bad, which was often. We fell in love, but I ended up a POW. I tried to contact her for years to no avail.
‘I met a bloke who also served here and remembered her, she was very pregnant and gave birth to a daughter, so that was that. I accepted that she had married. Chapter closed. I never married, no one could match our love.’
‘That was my Mum!’ Sue said. ‘Neither did she marry, accepting that she had lost you and that she had me to remind her of her “Jack”.
‘Can we go for a ride on Daisy tomorrow and catchup? We have a lot share, Dad.’
Russell Abbott
Collecting Time
The wizened old man smiled at his handiwork; all the clocks were oiled and ticking merrily away. Synchronised to the second! Burnished to a nut brown, his age indeterminate, he quietly whispered, ‘Well, my friend, it’s nearly time for another adventure. First Paris, then Scotland, where bagpipes stir my soul …’
The time machine rolled its metal eyes. ‘So why do you call them squealy bags?’
Fizzlewort cleared his throat, ‘It’s a term of endearment.’
‘What!’ exclaimed his companion. ‘In the same way you call me a “Bag of Bolts” or “Pegasus”, when the mood suits you?’
‘Exactly!’ cackled his cohort.
Falling into a warm silence, they watched as passersby moved at a frenetic pace. Barely registering the homeless old man muttering to himself as he patted the garish bike. Until a small girl stopped in front of them, joy written on her face.
‘Daddy,’ she whispered, ‘look at the magic bike. It’s all sparkly, and it’s whispering to the little man.’
‘Come on, darling, we have things to do.’
But as her russet curls would suggest, she could be stubborn. ‘No, Daddy!’
‘Okay, how about we get an ice-cream and come back? If they are still here, we’ll ask them.’
Licking her frozen treat, Gabby skipped alongside her father, asking a stream of questions about unicorns, fairies and witches. The child was obsessed. He bent down to wipe her face when something made him glance up.
‘I’ll be blowed,’ he cried out. ‘Look, Gabby, up there, high in the sky!’
She looked up, laughing.
‘See, Daddy, I told you, he was magic.’
Her father stared at the sight, eyes filled with tears of wonder as the old man sat astride his magnificent bike, pulling a banner which read:
You just need to believe …
Lynne Tatam
Untitled
In a land choked with bicycles, the air is sweet and clean
But where do you park them, once you’ve reached your chosen scene?
I’m looking for a parking spot along with desperate Dutch,
A pole, a fence, a parking rail, a bay or something such.
After riding round in creep despair, and feeling quite bereft,
When before us, on a waterway, someone packed their bike and left.
Shove it in, adjust the pedal, move it up a smidge,
There we safely left our friends, chained upon the bridge.
We’re cruising Red-Light district, not knowing where to go
Nik turns us both into a lane, to circle back for more.
And there they are … the famous girls, all lingerie and glass,
Dressed in lace and danger, whilst we walk on by in farce.
I’m not looking! No one’s looking! We’re pretending nothing’s there!
Yet I am looking, and everyone’s looking, at the goods they want to share.
Young girls chat and couples giggle, we adjust and fidge,
The ladies seek to meet your eye, but we are chained to our bridge.
Enough already, there’s one thing left: there’s a ‘coffee shop’ ahead
Iconic green leaves upon its sign belies what everyone’s said.
Inside is dark and sticky, with a stink to drive you mad
And the guy who has to serve you, is too stoned to even care.
We’re two old wizened gentlemen, more used to scones and cheese
But he doesn’t care, doesn’t blink an eye, when I say, two hash cookies please …
So they’re tucked away for later on, they’ll first sit in our fridge,
We’ll eat some food, we’ll mellow out, we’ll then unchain our bridge.
Ian Henricus
Finding the Time
Turning the corner, nothing seemed familiar. Hadn’t I retraced my steps exactly? I could not locate this particular footbridge on my complementary guide map. I was lost.
Ahead, a man selling flowers was standing beside a bicycle decorated with clocks. I approached, greeting him.
‘Daag!’ I said, smiling. ‘Could you please tell me the best way to the train station?’ I asked, scanning his display.
‘Daag!’ he answered. ‘You like our city? It is beautiful, yes?’
‘Thank you, yes! Wonderful! I visited the Rijksmuseum today. Now I must find my train.’
‘I see. The best way to the station is follow the river, take the canal bus, visit the old church, take some coffee with apple cake, enjoy the Van Gogh museum, the Anne Frank House. And you must go to Museum Van Loon. We have over 40 museums! The canals take you in circles, bigger and bigger, before you finally see the flower market, and leave Amsterdam.’
Laughing, I agreed, ‘Yes, that is the best way … but today I don’t have the time …’
He interrupted me, ‘I have time, I can give you time, look!’ pointing to his bicycle. ‘All the time in the world – except for the Swiss.’
I was not getting anywhere. A bouquet would be too awkward. Taking ten euros from my pocket, I made to go. He raised an eyebrow, fluttered a hand.
‘Time is money, but money is not time’, he said, taking the note. ‘Time marches, life cycles. Just be here! Don’t worry about the destination. You can go anywhere but, wherever you go, you start here. So, take the magic of the city with you, always.’
At that, I took some photos, we chatted, and he gave directions.
While waiting for the night train, I planned my next visit to Amsterdam.
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