Hey,
With the help of a Bikernet reader, Anson Alexander, who has every issue of Easyriders, we discovered the first Renegade poem. He wrote a portion of this while he was in the hospital after a Southern Comfort bike accident. We typed it from the original page while drinking Jack Daniels, so don’t blame the errors on me.
–Bandit
Ride to Live and Live to Ride
Yea though the night turns cold with shivering winds
Like the chilling cold steel of a cell
And the wet rain strikes the face like sparks from Hell
The beads of wetness pierce the thick denim
And the black worn leather becomes heavy
Pavement is slick like the capsule of a red
Daring slick tires spin even faster o’er the surface we dread
And the Devil tempts the chrome monster to spin closer to death
No matter God’s storm or the Devil’s wile
We Ride to Live and Live to Ride
The citizens stare in fear
As the long chrome front end draws near
In their haste and waste of Life
The watch us pass with contempt
And use their steel vehicles like sharp-bladed knives
To take our brothers’ lives
The worship a good and gracious God
While their fellow man the tread
But we will always Ride to Live and Live to Ride
Yea, our hearts are True
We love our machines and ride o’er the land
And love those who understand
But those are few as we roam
And relations dwindle till we stand alone
Our families drift away like wine bottles lost at sea
And the long rolling asphalt becomes our home
While we tend to forget the people we’ve known
For our only true love is to Ride to Live and Live to Ride
Those we call The Man–they follow the rumble of the beautiful machines we ride
And try in vain to make us hide
The ignorantly despise our mounts
Seek us out and run us down
They jail us and wail us
And yet, confined and separated from out mounts
We wait only to feel the highway beneath us again
Because although the laws are long
And The Man’s long arm is strong
They will work hard to no avail
For the long highway will forever bend
And our mounts will always fly with the wind
And forever we will Ride to Live and live to Ride
Yea though the rain’s wet slippery sheen paves our way
And Death reaches for us at every curve
The Devil’s Drugs tempt our minds
And citizens’ vehicle seek our demise
While unjust Law strains to restrict our lives
Some of us still dare to brave the steeds of two wheels
And scream o’er the highway with The Devil at our heels
Only our Brother know the freedom we hold
So Ride, forever Ride to Live and Live to Ride
–Renegade
