I’ve just received word that my poem “The Need” will appear in the fall edition of Midnight Sun Rider, Alaska’s motorcycle magazine. Yes, there are many motorcyclists in Alaska. Imagine riding Denali on your bike. The season is short in months but those summer days of mostly daylight could make for some great rides. And the unbelievable scenery. Many thanks to Wild Bill.
Two Poems from Wild Bill, The Alaskan Biker Poet
Left or Right
By Wild Bill © 2005 all rights reserved.
Simple sounds this day of spring
Cold steel turning warm
Rhythm sets my mind to roam
Direction starts to form
With not a thought my foot descends
A click and kick is felt
Hand relaxed, gears engage
Power takes the belt
Motion starts in a roll
Butterflies descend
Colors bright, shoulders tight
Feeling starts to blend
Left or right is on the mind
Decision is defaulted
A cage is rushing up on me
All the motion halted
Familiar turns are easy
Follow an older trail
Dare I take another track
Where shadows are not stale
Left or right is in the air
Heads or tails the gamble
Fate then takes its proper place
And down the road I amble.
A Motorcycle Seat
By Wild Bill
Copyright © 1996 All rights reserved
Many stories have been told
Of bikers and their bikes
By poets, writers, prosecutors,
Liars and the likes.
But it’s doubtful that you’ve heard
This story I repeat
With a Bar, Bikers, Beer
And a motorcycle seat.
A local road dog
Called Larry by his buds
Was at the Carousel
Sippin’ on some suds.
When a fellow rider
Re-entered from the street
Shouting out profanity
To candid to repeat!
Seems his battery
Had plumb run out of juice.
“Your bike will need a jump.”
Larry managed to deduce.
So with his own DieHard
Concealed beneath his seat
He jumped the brother’s bike
And the fellow hit the street.
Now Larry was a biker
With a heart like Denali
But if his kindness was a mountain
His memory was a valley.
He placed his seat atop his bike,
Ordered up a brew,
And proceeded to forget
The saddle mounting screw.
The rest of this story
I’m sure that you can guess.
But I simply must complete it,
A poet can’t do less!
Later in the evening
When he finished his last bottle,
Larry lit that big V-Twin’
And grabbed a little throttle!
Then just like a rocket
From Cape Canaveral launches,
The bike took off down the street…
Leaving Larry on his haunches.
He sat there on the road
With his seat beneath his flack,
Then remembered with concern
That he’d just filled up the tank.
Wild Bill Rogers is also the Editor and Publisher of Midnight Sun Rider, Alaska’s Motorcycle Magazine.
Songs of the Open Road 