all the imports hid behind plastic
farings and their riders crouched
on top of them wearing bright
tennis shoes
in the later
eighties when exposed satisfaction
aesthetically sprung onto those
Softail front ends in chromed
memories of the
future here in an
American reply with
our riders deep inside
of these machines such
that every element
upon Milwaukee
street poetry was concretely observed through that
Springer expanding & contracting any
time the rider's heart would & blood
pulsed through the sparkling coils straight from homemade poetic
.

the Holy Ranger's buddy
Theodorik woke his wife
one morning in the Maine
light to sing: "hey hey Martin J.!
how mant miles have ye rid today?
the boys on the bikes is waitn' fer you,
and so's that girl with the blue tattoo."
the Old Iguana has told tales of the campfires on the low
plains around which steeds were kickstand down & bores are
cleaned & guitars readied for action after seething trail
heat has been dispersed in stories that can be whistled (
in deference to Col. Cooper who asserts memorable poetics
must stay put with traditional meters & who would argue )
: sometimes the riders must
have nicknames to completely
master their feats that day for
these have been such mythological
wonders & on this night the Holy Ranger
was called "Stroker" because he rode with
such passion beyond speed limits accused
of the eleven hundred limit his mount
Ranger possessed so as the Iguana
told it
.

Theodorik in his boonie hat chopped wood in the Maine sun
that day whistling the rhyme

the Old Iguana cranked his Jeep through the Ohio bog with
greater tales for the plains

then Stroker walked the wooden steps up to Holy Ranger HQ
in Milwukee to spin the end

which would not be worth
much without the friends
such as Kenosha Bandit whose
machine puts these images in
type much the same as having
been there can
so when an end
comes riding across the page

it has been on a mysteriously long journey into title awe
.

Wisconsin winter crowds the roads
cutting the center line & wrapping
the shoulders
then off into the fields fenceposts
stick up as reminders
of springs's territory
& the blackbirds upon
those telephone wires
call to winter's
attention that
they aren't being scattered by
the holy exhaust roar from the

Harley Sportster that is restrained
by vinyl covering & plastic-coated
chains upon an insulated board in
a garage that is visited late at
night when the house is tight &
the yard flushed by the light
coming from my office window
where the walls are covered
with pictures of motorcycle

Kabbalah: the Old Iguana wearing
a shoulder rig in the bog
the ivory grips like open
April sunlight
Willie G. shaking hands
on a hot June afternoon
the front mudflap made
from carriage leather by
Hunt's Harness on one
visit to Colgate in
summer's late heat
the Holy Ranger
firing a Buntline Special
at rogue soda cans along
the road to the Monches
dump having dismounted
to take care of the
situation before it
got out of hand
the Gibson found in a
sixties ecstasy still
strung for trouble
in its hardshell
battered from
barroom blues

--these offroad memories found in
frames to contain their snowbound
imagery that develops further an
instant after Wisconsin spring on
the roads cutting about evolution
power drifts like so many friends
in the continuous Midwestern wind
.

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