The Bard


He looked so like a ghost
one from out of the past -
rough-shod laborer�s garments,
eyes with an Irish cast.

Grubby in his striped clothing;
more than one day�s mats of hair -
a beard just like Abe Lincoln�s
his posture showing signs of wear...

A dirty, tired man he was
the dust of toil, his aura:  earth.
Looking as a spirit out of place
yet owning such poetic worth...

He could have been the engineer
of a train from long ago;
Traversing, and learning the hills and plains
what stories he would know!

He might have been a miner of feed
for that horse which gobbles coal;
spending days within the close and darkened depths -
hours to chip away or build his soul.

A coarse and common man is he
yet a poet all the same -
and I never heard a single verse
from him, nor ever learned his name.

But as he ambled into The Coffee Scene
I thought:  he�s not from this time.
I�m hoping that wraith will reappear
and read to us a haunting rhyme...



� K.E.Cline; May 18, 1997
(for the �biker poet� at The Coffee Scene,
Fayetteville, NC)
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