Kerouac wears a pac-a-mac.

Kerouac wears a pac-a-mac.

At the time

I didn’t think

But looking back

It was more likely

I looked like a sex pest

In my dad’s old trenchcoat

Not a gangster

Or a cool dude exuding

A charismatic presence

With a hint of menace

Just to keep people guessing,

I was never messing with their heads.

Even on a dark night

In the rain

I was more focused on getting home

Than following the crowd

Perhaps that explains the wide berth

I gave to strangers

With balloons of hot air

Floating above their heads

Full of asterisks and question marks

Illuminating precisely nothing

Advertising life

As a gaudy promise

An empty threat.

I was never pulled into an alley

By a group of wildcats

On the rampage

Teenage hormones

Out of control

But then I was a guy

And the trenchcoat

Was a deterrent

Even against the wasters

Thank god for it.

How many times did I stick out a thumb

For a ride and got none

As dumb as a naive kid

From the sticks

Who believed all he read

Of Kerouac

And the other clever-dick poetry hicks

Pretending they were different

When they were pretentious shock jocks

With holes in their socks

And body odour

Which is easy if you wear the same clothes

Every day

As many people do

When poverty is a reality

Only the privileged freaks

Beatniks and refuseniks

(Who used to be Jewish in Russia

When it was the Soviet Union

But can be anybody now)

See the poetry in that.