The eighth poem in "A Coney Island Of The Mind", exemplifies the strength of Ferlinghetti's ability to capture the beauty of the moments that we so often pass by in everyday life, but that he is able to capture with the power of his meter. In this poem, he takes a simple scene that he has observed in Golden Gate Park and turns this image into a beautiful poem. Not only does he describe the love of the couple as they hold one another in a passionate embrace, but he ends the poem with a literary joke. It is important to remember that Ferlinghetti has obtained a sense of humor over the years that has evolved with the pains and triumphs of a full life lived; the sort of intellectual sense of humor that was common with a generation of scholars from the early twentieth century. This is not to say that Ferlinghetti is a writer caught in the grasps of a century before his time; he has never failed to evoke over time with his writing, taste, and fashion. But, he does possess an intellectual wit that has been lost in this era of postmodernism. Hemingway had it, as did a great many of his counterparts writing in the fifties. This is one of the attributes of his poetry, and maybe one reason why so many people visit his bookstore with each passing year. It is a touch of something beautiful lost that can never be discovered again; like a well worn picture that forever hangs on the wall of an old mansion by the loneliness of dusk. The poem opens with the simplicity and the beauty of the moment.
"In Golden Gate Park that day a man and his wife were coming along thru the enormous meadow which was the meadow of the world He was wearing green suspenders and carrying an old beat-up flute in one hand (5)
The poem continues describing the beauty of their embrace; carefully pulling the outer world of an omnipresent narrator into the internal world of the soul.
"And then the two came on through the enormous meadow which was the meadow of the world and then at a very still spot where the trees dreamed and seemed to have been waiting thru all time for them they sat down together on the grass without looking at each other" (6)
This poem continues into fruition until Ferlinghetti in a moment of poignancy throws in his Shakespearean intellectual rub.
"yet fingering the old flute
