He was a poet, not a writer

Been thinking lately about my late paramedic pal Ed Reardon, who's been gone four years—from the world, but not from me.

Ed was a master storyteller, who also claimed to be a poet. 

"I think of poems all the time," he said one night in Laschett's tavern. "I make 'em in my head. But once I think a poem, I never feel like writing it down. It's there! It's in my head! It's done!"

I asked him why he didn't just pick up a pencil and copy the things down. He looked at me like a CEO being told to take minutes in a board meeting.

He shook his head.

Then he winked.

"Some of these poems?" he nodded. "Pretty good."