The Not So Lost Generation

when I was a boy in high school I was handed a book it changed my life more than any thing else could have. that book was by one of the greatest beat writers and after I read it I knew what I wanted to in life and what I would strive to become. I wanted to be a Sal Paradise, a Japhy Rider, a beat poet and a subterranean. I wanted to be part of the lost beat generation of old. I thought it was lost in the sands of history. but over time I found it, it had no name or place of origin it was just there a nameless thing, an unforgettable ideology. I found it in coffee shops and in small book stores and cafes it lived. In dark allys and suburban homes it alike it lived. It was a way of life for some and a curiosity to others.

I met many poets in raged coats, unshaven with bags under there eyes old books torn and stained in there frayed pockets but there eyes had the gleam that only a person of the beat life could have, a kind of soulful enlightenment. I've seen old men the last of the darma bums siting in a park smiling but saying not a word, still loving the world however flawed it was. they saw past all the pain and the suffering and saw goodness and love that civilization still had as meager as it was it was there, they were true Buddha's in a world gone mad with greed and hate, the lust for power.

I found that the lost beat generation wasn't lost at all just quieted, a whisper in the dark, a small poem in a crowded cafe, a dusty old journal in a cramped closet. the beat generation will live on in the minds of the select few who live above the conceived ideas on normality of thought, and in hearts of poets whose ideas and words are censored every day and hidden from the lost souls who need them the most, but they keep writing and living the beat life because of the undying and endless power that it holds on them. The mind is still free after all, still uncontrolled and uninterrupted by fog of lies and ignorance.

We who live the life of the beat will continue on our travels and if though our passage in time and places we enlighten a few poets and writers and if were lucky a lost soul once and awhile so be it we live not just for gaining knowledge for our selves but passing it on to the lost and confused hearts of people. This lost generation is lost no longer to this writer, his mind is free of ignorance and fear of the true power of words. that so called lost generation has brought freedom to his heart and soul though the power of words and images.

The thoughts of hopelessness and fear gone forever and as long as this writer lives the so called lost and forgotten generation will live as he and others like him do, in freedom of the mind. never forgotten by many, loved by many more.