Kerouac and Cleave Poetry

I’ve been reading a lot of Jack Kerouac lately. I like some of his writings, particularly The Dharma Bums and particularly when he writes about his time on Desolation Peak. That’s where my head’s at these days. Peace, solitude, contemplation. But I found myself feeling very uneasy when I read On The Road. At first I wasn’t really sure why.

When I read an entry about Kerouac in someone's blog recently it made me realize why I may not appreciate the beats as much as others. The blogger loved On The Road and said "His writing gives you a look at a side of society that I'm (the blogger) never likely to experience." Ha! Epiphany!

That was it. It wasn’t so much his writing style that disturbed me but his characters. It was because I knew the characters in his books. Not those particular characters, but the type. They were my friends in my late teens and early 20s. A wild, fun, and interesting assortment but people who were headed full speed toward a dead end. You know the type, you probably have some of your own.


I see some of them on occasion. Franny, Spaceman, Scrot, T-Bone, and Coopdedo. They were the mad ones. The ones whose fire burned so brightly that it hit nova and expired before they hit middle age. Who believed they’d never live past 30. Who you might see now still hanging out at The Paddock (a local dive) having experienced multiple marriages, poverty, kids in jail, rehab, homelessness, and toothlessness.

Anyway, the other night Rick and I were “stumbling.” (See stumbleupon.com) We came across a website about Cleave poetry. Very cool!

Check it out: http://cleavepoetry.wordpress.com/

Cleave : is a contranym, a word with 2 opposite meanings:

verb 1) split or sever along a natural grain or line. 2) divide; split.

verb 1) stick fast to. 2) become strongly involved with or emotionally attached to.

In its most basic form it is three poems:

two parallel ‘vertical’ poems (left and right)

a third ‘horizontal’ poem being the fusion of the vertical poems read together.

So, I had been thinking about writing a poem reflecting on my memories of those crazy times and tying it in to Jack somehow. When I saw the Cleave Poetry site I decided to give it a try. So here’s what I came up with. Hope you enjoy it. It was fun to write. I don’t have a title. Suggestions?

Okay, well I see that the Blogger screen is not wide enough to make this work. Hmmm, let's try a jpg. . . Pathetic. You probably can't even read it. But if you can, just remember, it's read as 3 different poems.