JK Kerouac
In the first full days
of early summer
after a long cold northern hemisphere
the winter-time semester
hibernation is over
and Cardiff is in bloom.
Plump of flesh and pumping blood
young freemen and women of the polis
stride across the city campus
migrating with purpose,
girded in belief,
putting the world to rights.
They’re staging a play about
the crushing of the beats
Ginsberg, Burroughs, Kerouac, Cassidy;
all the men with name parts and the women in support.
The best minds of their generation
pre-destroyed by themselves.
Every revolution carries within
the seeds of destruction without,
I remind my gloriously unconvinced son.
It’s very important what you’re doing —
and they’ve done —and never
more so than now.
