Teddy Boy

John Boyd

Juke-box, jungle and flood of neon light
Fire the unspoken boredom of his eyes;
He leans at corners, gestured in defeat,
Ignoring the sly-eyed girl whose look speaks lies.
A prophet or Apollo of the time,
He assumes indifference, an all-protecting guile,
To public eyes the image and fact of crimes:
They do not like a man who cannot smile.

His song is one with a juke-box by the bar
Whose anguish speaks for his and other tongues;
He is the man of a moment not his own
Shifting beneath his feet, an unmapped mire:
The scapegoat reason for a public wrong
Who begging bread, received instead a stone.