Allen Ginsberg’s Typewriter and 2 more poems by Jim Bennett

Jim Bennett poems — Olivetti / emb, from a photo by mp clemens via CC BY

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

Jim Bennett

Jim Bennett has written 74 books and numerous chapbooks and pamphlets in a 48-year career as a poet. Jim lives near Liverpool in the UK and tours giving readings of his work throughout the year. He is widely published and has won many competitions and awards for poetry and performance. He runs Poetry Kit, one of the world’s most successful internet sites for poets. one of the world’s most successful internet sites for poets.