1960s Speak

I've been reading a lot of Frank O'Hara lately, so I think that is where the casual, more literal tone of the poem is coming from. I'm not comparing myself to him, I promise, I just think that's what I was trying to emulate.

It’s that pause with beer halfway to your mouth,

to lock your gaze on the invisible,

and your blue eyes glass with reminiscence

(although you would swear they were brown).

That clear blue betrays you, for it shows

your memories like a projector

of speed heads and protests and Pink Floyd,

the time you saw them through dry ice.

When you needed nothing more

than another day in which to exist

and maybe the new Allman Brothers,

with a vinyl scratch discs don’t give.

Your life would read like Kerouac

if you, in fact, had ever read him.

But you haven’t, and you won’t,

you’re too busy living.