I, rebel

I, a rebel of no renown,
Offspring of a roll of the dice
In a back alley where time was short
And ecstasy trumped the sound of
The bell tower that rang in the church;

A rebel who would never wear the scars
Of a hangman’s noose, nor the white pallor
Of a man imprisoned behind stone walls;
White knuckled fingers gripping steel bars.
Yet a maverick, unbranded in life out of sheer
Determination to remain free;

I gathered words by the handful
As if they were diamonds; placing them
In the many pockets of my mind;
Regarding the eloquence of poetry as
Man’s highest cultural endeavor.

A vagabond lost under the Stars,
A Cyrano de Bergerac lost in a world
As strange to me as I am to it,
One who had found his Roxanne
And wishing only to show my love
Had nothing to offer her but a
Pocketful of shimmering words.

Gary Orphey about Gary Orphey. I am unpublished and as for a bio, there is little to say. An ex Air Force, circa early 1960’s, a laborer, another niche found much later in life in the arts. Artist,(Abstract and traditional) Illustrator, Designer, Now a poet/ latent songwriter, ‘The Texas Dog Poet’ as I like to call myself. I read the beat poets early on. When I was fourteen (1956) I read ‘On the Road’, and ‘Howl’ and I was never the same. Poetry chased me down and so here I am. Here is what I have to say regarding me.: “I am a runaway under the Southern Cross, a stranger in a group of strangers, a dreamer of great, relentless dreams that seem to take over my head like the stars take over the sky at night. I traveled this country not for the call of the towns and the cities that lie on their pathways. Nor the rivers that wind along side them, or even of the mountains that birthed the rivers. I am restless because I know life is out there somewhere and I have to live it.” I sometimes write under the name of Jocko James (Hence the email moniker) as well as my own.