Beats In My Down Time

As the new decade approaches, the definition of "down time" is that yesterday I burned one and looked at photos from our Georgia trip (the picture above is from the Wolf's Den loop on the Pine Mountain Trail), then watched a slew of Gregory Corso interviews. At one point, Corso talked about how a poet, classically, stands alongside the royalty, "with the kings and emperors." To be a poet, if you ask Corso, is to be an expert, a holy voyager, someone who obeys a higher law than the prosaic everyman's. He said that most so-called poets are mere minstrels. "Poet," he commented, is a "top class appellation." Now, that whole old school "royal court" conceptual overlay is pretty analog and goofy, which is what makes it fun. But I'd be hard pressed to separate the "real" poets from the "unreal" ones. And maybe that's my generation's torpor and confusion talking, or my own limitations...so it's nice to listen to someone with hubris lay down their philosophy. So on the last day of Fall semester, I handed out to my class copies of Kerouac's "Essentials of Spontaneous Prose" & "Belief & Technique of Modern Prose," two essays, more or less, describing the man's method and advice for writers. Included are such bon mots as "the jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye" and "believe in the holy contour of life." A modern man I am, indeed. I believe in the holy contour of life and not much else. Mostly, I indulge possibilities - sometimes to the point of madness - like the possibility of leaves beside a mountain stream. But I like the idea that "poet" or "writer" or "human being" is a title to live up to and honor - or at least a rumor to maintain - as if an ethereal king is hovering nearby, expecting virtuosity.