A Beat in Concord - Poem by Raymond A. Foss

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

I saw a character, a caricature, a man out of time
on the sidewalk, under the underpass, half in shadow
He was a beat,
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
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
a mop of coarse black hair
that hadn’t seen a brush or comb in days
sunken eyes, and a certainty
he’d written lines far darker than these
words that would confuse and provoke
the unfairness of the mundane, 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 moments
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
May 18, 2006 5:59pm