THE FOUND GENERATION

"This is nothing but a beat generation." - Jack Kerouac

Before he found his beat,
Kerouac called his American generation
a 'found generation,'
mistaking his own compassion and inspiration
for the realities of the time

He didn't realize
we were yet to come:
after the U.S.S.R., McCarthy,
disco, glam-rock, Bob Dylan, and air-raid drills

We are advanced, barbaric
artistic and unstoppable
mellow as doves
indestructible as cockroaches;
"Nirvana" was our great depression
our great war between Tupac and Biggie

We are terribly over-educated
and by world standards: rich,
and we're free of the imperialistic obsessions:
swallowed in the thrills of internationalism,
free-thought free-enterprise
confidence and modernity

But, at heart, I'm still a dharma bum
poor and free
still beat