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Editor's note: Because it's meaningless and dumb, the line "burn-unit bicycles" in the poem above has always bothered me. Until now, I never bothered to look it in the eye long enough to get it to turn away. Partially because it's one of those lines that gets the poem rolling (it occurs early on), and coming from the stream-of-consciousness Beatnik school of writing as I do, I figured the annoyance was just part of the process. You don't want to linger too long on any one line; it's better to run the red light than to sit there like a fool, afraid that the poetry cops are going to write you a ticket. Just blow through the light. You can always outrun the laws of society and grammar. But "burn-unit bicycles" is a terrible line. I have always hated it.

Only now, over 5 years later, has it occurred to me to change the word "bicycles" to "icicles." Burn-unit icicles is a much more interesting, paradoxical image (as opposed to a senseless one), and describes the subject of the line perfectly. Burning, yet frozen. My instincts were correct; the real line was hiding behind the bad line, but it was necessary to revisit it and cut away the excess linguistic fat. One letter, in this case. 

I no longer subscribe to the Beatnik school, not strictly, and have long-since understood the wisdom in refining the raw, stream-of-consciousness puke material, and taking the time to make it better. You have to trust your instincts as a writer, but not at the expense of ruining a poem with a stupid, meaningless image like "burn-unit bicycles." Don't linger on anything, but take note of anything that aggravates you, learn to ride the icicles, and return to the puddle of rancid, unholy spontaneity to hammer away at it until it resembles something edible.

Kerouac may be the only exception to this would-be rule. The exception that proves the rule, as they say.

This guy is not:

The Walt Whitman of the 20th Century. A fraud, but at least he pretended to write more than one poem in his life.

The Beats knew that there is wisdom in letting the poem, painting, or song dictate the terms of its own demise (or rise, as the case may be), but they were wrong in thinking that every line is sacred, grand, or fundamentally brilliant for no other reason than that it popped into their head. Of course, they had to spend their whole lives pretending that Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and many others were actually poets and writers instead of lazy, disingenuous gasbags, so they were handicapped from day one.

The rats poisoned the few true poets in the group, but were unable to entirely destroy them. In Kerouac's case, to destroy him it proved necessary only to get out of his way. As Vonnegut said,

"So it goes."

Thanks for listening.

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