Allen Ginsberg’s typewriter
I bought
Allen Ginsberg’s portable
Olivetti typewriter
from a pawnshop in Liverpool
where he had left it
on an Autumn day in 1965
(I had to pay a bit extra for it
because it had his initials,
along with others,
scraped into the paint on the base)
he had pawned it
to get a ticket to somewhere
where people wanted to listen
but never come back.
it’s a funny thing
old fashioned and stiff keyed
needing Allen Ginsberg fingers to caress
the naked bone of the key top
and always typing in his voice
first I wrote a poem to my mom
but it turned into a familiar poem
about someplace I had never been
then I tried again
it wrote a song to Father Death
and every time I tried to write
it wrote as he had done
until Howl was written
twenty times
I soon realised that it would only work for him
so I scraped my initials onto the base
and pawned it
I made sure I never went back
so unless anyone bought it
it is probably still there
looking out onto the world
through the pawnshop window
looking old now
with the money I paid the deposit
on a new typewriter
and a pair of scissors
a rhythm all its own
the footsteps different
from home even mine
more purposeful or less
the regular stop to check
map or landmark
the unknown distances measured
in blocks or unfamiliar street names
or numbers
people too are different
some their step relaxed
talk amiably or argue
face to face gesticulating
others rush clutching bags
stride or jog going somewhere
fast
even traffic sounds different
drivers play a tattoo on vehicle horns
brakes screech and sirens wail
as whistles blow
this is a city alive with clichés
a city where the rhythm
is syncopated like jazz
on the day Lou Reed died
when I was a child everything was sandstone
darker from the weight of time and smog
that crusted every building
until high pressure water jets
scouring stone turning it red and grey
to look clean again
over time most buildings wore a shroud
of scaffolding and tarpaulin
until the past was washed away
I remember the sound of the wind
beating at the sheets pumps pounding
spent water running down the walls
across the pavements into gutters
where it swelled and flowed like a river
bubbling in white foaming rapids
it washed away the stain of pigeons and gulls
carbon from the furnaces and the coal fires and grime
of the once working classes to the river
when the past is wiped away like that
so much is lost and changed but it makes music
and that will always be there
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