Jack Kerouac’s scroll in The British Library
– it’s the immense pressure
of standing a beat apart,
released through fine
nicotine hands
into dizzying thuds
of keys and ribbon,
that leaves a trail of latticework serifs
as he drags them all behind him
into the storm’s epicentre
not caring if they cling on
or let go as he wrecks their home
on his feral chase towards the
next sentence, next word.
Laughing in the back of the car,
this endless drive towards the present
renders him forever absent,
as once again the phoney sound
of the faithfully recorded
disgusts him; each failure
banging into the night
like the QWERTY of girls and boys
under his fingertips
re-typed again and again
until they can no longer
read themselves
unless through his eyes.
Each letter, now made sacred
behind glass,
begs us to come closer
but it’s too much –
it’s the immense pressure
of standing a beat apart
Joolz Sparkes is published in South Bank Poetry magazine and Loose Muse, was Poet in Residence at Leicester Square tube and was shortlisted for Bridport Poetry Prize 2010. Current projects include London Undercurrents – a joint project with poet Hilaire.
This poem was first published in South Bank Poetry magazine in 2013