Changes

I read Kerouac long ago and have a number of books by "Beat" authors - Kerouac, Burroughs, Ginzberg, Corso, etc… I saw something in their writing that resonated at the time I bought them. Recently I've taken to sitting for about an hour drinking coffee at the Starbucks in the local train station before going to play Go (one of my hobbies). I often bring a book along because drinking coffee, eating a donut and watching the people enter and leave the station can get boring. The other day I brought this book of poems by Kerouac, selected from my bookshelf for its size (4.875 inches wide City Lights Pocket Poets series) as it fits exactly into the back pocket of my jeans. I like both my hands free and don't carry a shoulder bag or backpack as so many men do. I like to carry everything I need in my pockets. Is this an American thing I wondered? Anyway, back to the book. I read a few poems (the book is called "Pomes all sizes") and my first impression was that these were either not poems or that the writer was no poet. They seemed very self-centered, and by this I mean that the poems would only have meaning to the one who wrote them. There were many references to his friends and their particular personalities. Kind of a record of what he was thinking or feeling, but that record is self-conscious and unnatural. It made me ask myself what I saw in his writing in the first place. We surely change over time. Are the books I've carried with me all my life no longer mine? Are they just a discarded shell of a former self? I thought of how we change physically. Cells in our body are constantly being replaced. But something keeps a continuity. Something floating between and connecting all the cells. Something called consciousness? And what am I looking for in the books bought by a former me? Maybe a spark that was there when I bought them?

I'll try another book next visit to Starbucks. I'm running out of pocket sized books so I may have to carry one in my hand. I measured a few and they mostly seem to be about 5.5 inches wide. Do I need pants with larger pockets?

*an aside: at Starbucks I always have to be sure to say "hot coffee" or else I'll get "ice coffee." I ordered hot coffee yesterday (cafe Americano) and I noticed that, while making it the barista put ice in it and, when he realized his mistake, he dumped it out and made it correctly. Ice coffee must be the norm here?