Google Maps
Winner of the Biketober 2018 writing competition. This poem is about the author's experience of cycling across Christchurch, using Google Maps as my navigator.
Nov 17 ● 1 min read ●
Google maps you take me
though the underpass
fast on my bike
in the night
my lights flash on the
shapes of down and outs
the louts, layabouts
who shout obscenities
at me racing past
on my bike
Google maps you take me
through the park in the dark
where lovers meet
escaping the heat of the street
they intertwine with the divine.
The sign says
NO BIKES,
Google maps.
Google maps you take me
the wrong way down the one-way,
spit me out into the outside lane
of state highway seventy-three
trucks, motorbikes, cars don’t
see me on my bike
with high vis and flashing lights.
‘In three hundred metres
turn right’
Yeah, right!
Google maps you take me
down an alley off a side alley,
via a road that’s closed,
through dead-ends,
road cones, potholes,
to some-place I didn’t want to go,
meeting someone I don’t know.
Google maps,
take me home.
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