flahute

Imperfection is Perfection: A Film About Richard Sachs and his Bicycles

For nine months in 2007, film maker Des Horsfield made a documentary about bicycle frame builder Richard Sachs.

Horsfield’s film takes an intimate look into the life and mind of the bicycle frame builder as Richard Sachs talks about why he does what he does, exactly as he does it.

The story reveals his reasons for entering the frame building trade, how and why he works only with steel, and why the entities of Sport and Bicycle have remained inseparable to him.

Check out the trailer at Des Horsfield Productions.

ADVENTURES IN INK

Fountain pen,
    an adventure in ink.

Words drip from the nib’s caress ———

Strokes flow across the page,
    swooping letters,
        sweeping serifs.

A poet composes,
    filling the page
        with images culled
    from the mind’s
        recess.

Copyright © 2008, Steven L. Sheffield

THE FIRST POEM

of the day will be
calm and gentle,
a stumbling, messy
easing in,
fingers gently on the typer,
becoming familiar with
the shape of the keys,
the sound of the hammer
and the form of the letters,
it will be a chance to breathe,
to gather some momentum,
to look at the blackbird
outside the window
and the sleeping cat
who care less for poetry
than the blackbird,
without fear of screwing up the
best poetry I have written.
the fingers will slowly gather speed
and the words will start to flow,
although they say little,
until the sound is hammer, hammer, hammer
and a dog barks to distract me
and I remember other things to be done
so I leave the first poem as it is
and it will also possibly be the last poem
of the day because life will not
always allow space for poems
and another day will pass without any
immortal remains.

  — Adrian Manning (b. 1967), English poet, currently residing in Spain. From Wretched Songs For Out Of Tune Musicians, copyright ©2003. Published by Bottle of Smoke Press. Reprinted without permission.