I was sitting there in the
traffic, waiting for the light
the heat and humidity
building in the van,
one window open to the moist
air after the flooding
only there for a moment, in
shadows,
under the highway, waiting
for the light
I saw a character, a
caricature, a man out of time
on the sidewalk, under the
underpass, half in shadow
He was a beat, a throwback,
caught in time
not a Ginsberg, no he
wouldn’t Howl,
a modern day Kerouac, or
someone who aspired to be
It was his walk, his gait,
his hair, his clothes
a slouched walk, bath
sandals that had been worn outside too long
hunched shoulders, time
spent in dim lit libraries,
before glowing computer
screens, shaded lamps
an oversized blazer from the
thrift store, elbows patched
over a frock prom shirt,
frilled and with cranberry edging
I could sense the latte on
his breath
smell of clove cigarettes in
the wool of the coat
too warm for the day around
him, swelter
a mop of coarse black hair
that hadn’t seen a brush in
days
sunken eyes, and a certainty,
a knowing
he’d written lines far
darker than these
words that would confuse and
provoke
unfairness of the mundane, inertia
the bleakness of his
bourgeois existence
unaware of his place, his
role in the intelligentsia
A yawn at the coffee house,
or maybe a demigod
hard to say across the
street, as I was
driving by his path for
those few seconds
before my light went green
and I went on down the road
away from the college-aged,
but no-longer-in-college beat
on the street in Concord
Edited July 2, 2013
“A Beat in Concord – v5”
based on original version
further edits June 30, 2012
(turning the poem to the
present tense)
further edits June 30, 2012
further edited June 6, 2012
(with edited by Elisha and Marshall Burns)
edited June 6, 2012
written May 18, 2006 5:59pm
written about someone I saw
under the Exit 14 underpass, Concord, NH
All
of my poems are copyrighted by Raymond A. Foss, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004,
2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013. All rights reserved.
Contact me at Ray
Foss for usage. See all 26,040+ of my poems at www.raymondafoss.blogspot.com Poetry
Where You Live.
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