Beat Poet’s Corner- Out in the American Wilderness-With Allen Ginsberg’s America In Mind

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

…he awoke to the sound of far-off steel being hammered and to the sight of mad monk welder’s sparks melting bolts and sprockets into the skin of some wayward ship, a tanker probably, across the channel. A year or so before those sights and sounds would have been creating troop transports for icy Atlantic voyages, voyages that he would dream of years later, and then years after that take when he needed to make serious jail-breaks from nine to five, from parent beehive, from the world he had not created and had no say in creating. Those sights and sounds by the way had disturbed his sleep dream, his childish sleep of big pacific ocean shores, surfer boys waving to waiting shoreline surfer girls stretched, bikini clad -stretched across some woodie sunning themselves waiting for their man to return from the sea and then drink them in after having spent eons waiting for the perfect wave. Of some young good-looking hobo, or just a guy on the loose, unsettled from the war and in no nine to five hurry left off in the middle of nowhere by a friendly farmer while travelling some coast highway, west coast of course, stopping at some sea-side diner for a cup of joe and to buy a fresh deck of smokes, winding up behind the eight ball, way behind, when she came through the café door, came through and made his knees buckle, him a guy who had hopped the Pacific islands with the best of them in the big one, and led him down the garden path, down east of Eden, down that final smile path just before they turned on the juice. Yes, then smiling some quizzical smile like he just found out what the world was all about. And of another guy, another good-looking guy, a guy built to take it, all bumps and bruises from taking a fall, and taking the fall, knees buckling too, over some dame, some dame in a come hither form- fitting red dress. He though he detected that same quizzical smile on that guy's face too.

Welcome to the American wilderness, the America of steel and steel-hammering, of gypsy freighters carrying materials and men to far-flung places, and thoughts of pacific atolls, south sea islands, exotic ports of call. And of puzzling, puzzling over the meaning of that childish sleep dream, puzzling over that "where was he heading," where he was heading in this Masonite world that he had not been asked about had, and, frankly, had no say in. The sounds of hammering, yes, the sounds of hammering diminished in the cold war red scare night as craggy-faced workmen, too afraid, too kiddish scared to speak above a whisper for fear, with hungry mouths to feed would line up passively for the dole, line up for some godforsaken food charity or shoe charity or pants charity courtesy of some generous Catholic patron working his way up to heaven on the installment plan, seeking plenary indulgences or whatever they called them, and other hard-bitten men further down the food chain line up for bedding, lining up for soup, lining up for everything waiting their coffee spoon lives away. Good men but not smart men, not smart in the go-go American consumer night of the tail-finned car and the breezeway ranch-style house, when god, god do you hear, ordained that one must have this and that, changeable at the merest whim.

And so he, a son of soiled moloch, some flash dance singer, came of age, came of rugged cross age in that blood red night, in the night of whispers, the slender reed whispers against the stacked decks and learned to hate the sound of whispers and of generous Catholic patrons working their strident road to heaven and so instead of dreaming of smart things, although he fancied himself smart, was told so as well, all he dreamed of was those burning torches, that far-off campfire, that hobo jungle that his grandfather told him about, fast against the Denver &Rio Grande, the Southern Pacific, the Union Pacific railroad sidings, and about no more line-ups, no more hand-outs and no more looking at the ground when Mister, Mister Big, decided he needed those damn indulgences. (In the end, strangely, he would come to curse those jungles not because they were land’s end, man’s end, the end of the line but because, all he heard there was of stacked decks, of blood red nights, and campfire strewn whispers when the times called for rages, loud, loud rages).

He thought too of not fitting in, of not having a niche, shoe-less or almost, in glamour craving times, of having no cache, no place, and being scorned in that upward spiraling night, the night of the golden dream just beyond his Robert Browning poem grasp. Turning inward, turning kind of twisted against some rock- filled shores, shells all this way and that, sand taking a lashing from storm cloud waves, all silvery green-blue flecked with white capped swells, and against some prairie-dreaded vengeance. Making due, sneak-thief making due with mother pocketbook snatches, petty larceny “clips” of some woe begotten senorita dream factory like some trinket, some bauble, would do the trick, would take away the aloneness, and of outrageous expectations always just beyond that aloneness. So alone, alone like some school boy long distance runner mating with swerving cars and irate pedestrians trying to work his vengeance out, trying to keep his own ill-advised counsel , trying to keep private dreams, hurts and wistful vengeances and sweaty palms too don’t forget that crammed in his head he came of age.

Came of ages, hunger ages, ages of learning, ages of “clip: memories, ages of “they got theirs and I want mine”mixed in with grandiose plans for that newer world a-borning that was just around the corner. They, he, had almost make it, except for some very consequential stray bullets and the hungry in the end getting tired, tired from the hunger and from having to concede the point in this wicked old world, and from not walking off with some beauty queen, some little rock and roller, some little short-skirted drive-in queen who had seen to it that his knees buckled, he who had mock island hopped with the best of them in the big one, and that white picket fence dream.

Not for him though, him of the next highest mountain, and after that higher still, and of some himalayas of the mind mixed in with drunken sots (too many sots to identify, categorize, analyze, metaphorize [sic]), and later opium dreams (in Saigon brothels and Hawaii way stations), no, better, peyote, message glances against stone-flickered Southwest canyon walls multi-colored and sandwiched in layers down in some high desert night retreat replicating earlier sojourns by forbear mystic-misfits and knowing just then what those ancients on this continent dreamed of , warrior avenged dreamed of, dreamed of when the deal went down when the white blood was up, up like in that red scare night, the night of the sheltered whispers. But all of that was later, later dream-addled, dream crashed later. First he had to get through Jack fresh air dreams, and hubris, and night sweats about girls, about life, about death, and about the next dollar and the dollar after that. And that fit in thing, that thing that had to be gotten through.

That fit in thing, tramping midnight streets, streets unnamed, named streets, Adams Street, Massachusetts Avenue, Tremont Street, Commonwealth Avenue, big streets, long streets with long thoughts, gathering up the energy to run across town to catch late night train rides, rides to hobo coffee shops, hobo shops filled with the night’s human refuse and human desire, hobo shops squeezed in by vagrant wandering poets, minstrels and wantons, in order to whistle in the dark against the moloch night, against the consumer this and consumer that cache, to howl perhaps, although that clarion call was used up, had been used up a few years before and so coffee cup and fugitive glances had to do, and that steamy bread, always steamy. Later, years later, those fugitive nights, those “be there when the tide turns,” turns to our time turns, he would dream walk into some misnamed coffeehouse and go mano y mano with some sweet senoritas too, then lassitude set in, laziness really when some greek goddess (of the mind, in reality just another waif child searching for the road out of perdition) flamed his wanton besotted heart.

Then an interlude, a forced retreat before going forward again, against the world he had not created, and had no say in creating. So he sought that higher mountain for a while, not pure, not pure white, not pure white like most mountains are not pure white upon closer inspection, not pure white by any means since he had that childhood hunger that would not stop, that would not let him be. He did good though, did good in that solidarity night, and took his fifteen minutes of fame, and dwelled on that for some future time. And he survived the interlude, survived it just fine.

But the times too changed and those mystic canyon arroyo sweet dreams dissipated into the western night, and the search, the search, the clanging, hammering search, had to begin again, damn, damn it, the new ocean search, those phantom echoes of those craggy-faced shipbuilders began to haunt his brain, began to impair his judgment about what was right and what was wrong and in the end he could not rise, rise, I say, I tell you even to the minimum human substrate, the minimum sense of human solidarity and so he had to roll the rock up the hill Prometheus- style, and keeping on rolling that rock. Ah.