Ode to the Beat Generation - The Ride

I found the Beat Generation poets at a vulnerable time of my youth when I needed them more than I knew. They came to be as friends and mentors and they would change the way I view the world, literature, poetry and writing for the rest of my life and they were an inspiration to me to always try to respect and grow my craft. Now, I have not always been a good disciple of them and I have often let life get in the way of a creative path. Yet they were always waiting within the tattered pages of my dusty books to encourage me on.

My Beat Generation Initiation

My first interaction with the Beat Generation was due to an amazing teacher and mentor that took pity on my fumbling creativity and offered me a reprieve from my youthful frustrations of trying to "force" a piece. He lent me a copy of On the Road by Jack Kerouac and from the turn of the first page I was absolutely, irrevocably hooked. It was as if I had bitten down on a firecracker and my consciousness was exploded to the far reaches of the universe.

Although Kerouac was my first introduction to the Beat Generation movement, he was quickly followed by Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Gregory Corso. These gods among mortals so generously shared their knowledge and talent with me and I was like a parched dog lapping it up on my hands and knees.

 

The Treasure Hunt

This, of course, was a time before clicking and adding to cart technology existed and many of my afternoons and weekends were saturated with hours of me digging though dust used book stores, library index cards(dating myself, huh?), and occasionally finding a mainstream article or book at a retail bookstore. Many years later, I would find a first edition of On the Road at a north Georgia antique bookstore and would have cut of my left arm if it would have raised the exorbitant amount of money to buy this treasure. These searches gave me direction and purpose at a time where I could have been doing much, much worse if left to my own devices.

Once found, I would pour through the pages attempting to glean every ounce of knowledge and beauty from each word and phrase. The cadence and creativity of their work moved me in a way that I had never experience and I began to understand the power of the written word. They are are instrumental in facilitating my life-long love affair with the written word and I owe them a debt that can never be repaid.

I do not own the rights to this video, but I actually found this video on an old VHS cassette at a library and it was the second time I heard Jack Keroac's voice and the first time I had seen him as he was reading his own work. It moved me beyond what words I posses to describe. Anyone who listens to this and is not moved on a spiritual, creative level would surprise me.

 

My Inspired Piece

The inspiration for this post was due to a previous original poem that I uploaded and one of my friends mentioned it was from my "beat" period. This caused me to take pause and look closer at the poem I had written and he was right. I could definitely see where the influences of my literary heroes had shaped the piece. He is a new piece specifically written by opening myself up to their influences on me and my life:

 

Image Courtesy Pixabay

 

Those Dells, those bells, those cells, running through those holy hells!

The asphalt uncoiled, unrolled as we chase that elusive setting sun West! It fights us and races on trying to blind us with it’s radiant glory.

Burning the image of it’s soul through our retina and imprinting on our crafty reptilian brain.

So we speed on, speed on towards that shadowed horizon and to our destiny on this globe spinning.

The rust bucket, second-hand crown vic screaming in rebellion against our odyssey, spewing forth foamy mouthed pain and fumes that tickle the back of our dusty throats. Pretending we were barrelling across West Virginia in a Cadillac like the crazy-eyed Sir Williams did on his fateful midnight ride.

The skip-jacked cassette player with only Linda Ronstadt to croon us into our oblivion, over and over and over and over again we are forced dream of Blue Bayou and we, through no fault of our own, begin to despise it and secretly snicker as the tape thins and slows in the ancient time machine of pain, distorting her to a growling demon after our very souls.

Practicing what we hear, practicing what we preach, we walk the walk of our beloved poets towards the westeward Mecca of San Fran and the Big Sur, loaded with pipe dreams and lukewarm Pepsi and peanuts, but we’ll never get there, you and I.

Our fate lay somewhere, someWHEN else. Our tired ol’ chariot would betray us on some dark desolate stretch and, penniless tail-tucked defeat would consume us and distance us like no other force of nature could.

This ride was a good ride, our cause a noble cause, our youth wasted on things youth should be wasted on….each other.

 

Thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings. Have you ever read any of the Beat Generation? If so, what piece moved you the most? What other literary figure has influenced you?

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Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://papacrusher.vornix.blog/2018/07/14/ode-to-the-beat-generation-the-ride/

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Images courtesy Pixabay, video courtesy of YouTube

All photos and videos are my own creation unless otherwise noted.

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Animation By @zord189

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All That Is Gold Does Not Glitter,
Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost
-Tolkien