The Poetry of Jack Kerouac Read online

  Finnegans Wake & Visions of Neal

  1955?

  LUCIEN MIDNIGHT

  Dying is ecstasy.

  I’m not a teacher, not a

  Sage, not a Roshi, not a

  writer or master or even

  a giggling dharma bum I’m

  my mother’s son & my mother

  is the universe—

  What is this universe

  but a lot of waves

  And a craving desire

  is a wave

  Belonging to a wave

  in a world of waves

  So why put any down,

  wave?

  Come on wave, WAVE!

  The heehaw’s dobbin

  spring hoho

  Is a sad lonely yurk

  for your love

  Wave lover

  And what is God?

  The unspeakable, the untellable,

  —

  Rejoice in the Lamb, sang

  Christopher Smart, who

  drives me crazy, because

  he’s so smart, and I’m

  so smart, and both of us

  are crazy.

  No,—what is God?

  The impossible, the impeachable

  Unimpeachable Prezi-dent

  Of the Pepsodent Universe

  But with no body & no brain

  no business and no tie

  no candle and no high

  no wise and no smart guy

  no nothing, no no-nothing,

  no anything, no-word, yes-word,

  everything, anything, God,

  the guy that aint a guy,

  the thing that cant be

  and can

  and is

  and isnt

  Kayo Mullins is always yelling

  and stealing old men’s shoes

  Moon comes home drunk, kerplunk,

  Somebody hit him with a pisspot

  Major Hoople’s always harrumfing

  Egad kaff kaff all that

  Showing little kids fly kites right

  And breaking windows of fame

  Blemish me Lil Abner is gone

  His brother is okay, Daisy Mae

  And the Wolf-Gal

  Ah who cares?

  Subjects make me sick

  all I want is C’est Foi

  Hope one time

  bullshit in the tree

  I’ve had enough of follin me

  And making silly imagery

  Harrumph me kaff

  I think I’ll take off

  For Cat and fish

  1957

  1

  Someday you’ll be lying

  there in a nice trance

  and suddenly a hot

  soapy brush will be

  applied to your face

  —it’ll be unwelcome

  —someday the

  undertaker will shave you

  2

  Sweet monstranot love

  By momma dears

  Hey

  Call God the Mother

  To stop this fight

  3

  Me that repeated & petered

  The meter & lost 2 cents

  Me that was fined

  To be hined

  And refined

  Ay

  Me that was

  Whoo ee

  The owl

  On the fence

  4

  Old Navajoa shit dog, you,

  your goodies are the goodiest

  goodies I ever did see, how

  dog you shore look mad

  when yer bayin

  Hoo Hound-dog!

  don’t eat that dead rabbit

  in front of my face raw

  —Cook it a lil bit

  1953-4?

  1968

  I

  clearly

  saw

  the skeleton underneath

  all

  this

  show

  of personality

  what

  is

  left

  of a man and all his pride

  but bones?

  and all his lost snacks o’ nights …

  and the bathtubs of liquor

  thru his gullet

  … bones—He mopes

  in the grave,

  facial features

  changed by worms

  *

  *

  *

  *

  from him

  is heard

  no more

  *

  *

  *

  *

  Life is sick

  Dogs cough

  Bees sail

  Birds hack

  Trees saw

  Woods cry

  Men die

  Ticks try

  Books lie

  Ants fly

  Goodbye

  1960

  HYMN

  And when you showed me Brooklyn Bridge

  in the morning,

  Ah God,

  And the people slipping on ice in the street,

  twice,

  twice,

  two different people

  came over, goin to work,

  so earnest and tryful,

  clutching their pitiful

  morning Daily News

  slip on the ice & fall

  both inside 5 minutes

  and I cried I cried

  That’s when you taught me tears, Ah

  God in the morning,

  Ah Thee

  And me leaning on the lamppost wiping

  eyes,

  eyes,

  nobody’s know I’d cried

  or woulda cared anyway

  but O I saw my father

  and my grandfather’s mother

  and the long lines of chairs

  and tear-sitters and dead,

  Ah me, I knew God You

  had better plans than that

  So whatever plan you have for me

  Splitter of majesty

  Make it short

  brief

  Make it snappy

  bring me home to the Eternal Mother

  today

  At your service anyway,

  (and until)

  1959

  POEM

  I demand that the human race

  ceases multiplying its kind

  and bow out

  I advise it

  And as punishment & reward

  for making this plea I know

  I’ll be reborn

  the last human

  Everybody else dead and I’m

  an old woman roaming the earth

  groaning in caves

  sleeping on mats

  And sometimes I’ll cackle, sometimes

  pray, sometimes cry, eat & cook

  at my little stove

  in the corner

  “Always knew it anyway,”

  I’ll say

  And one morning won’t get up from my mat

  1962

  THE THRASHING DOVES

  In the back of the dark Chinese store

  in a wooden jailhouse bibbet box

  with dust of hay on the floor, rice

  where the rice bags are leaned,

  beyond the doomed peekokoos in the box

  cage

  All the little doves’ll die.

  As well as the Peekotoos—eels

  —they’ll bend chickens’ necks back

  oer barrels and slice at Samsara

  the world of eternal suffering with silver

  blades as thin as the ice in Peking

  As thick & penetrable as the Wall of China

  the rice darkness of that store, beans,

  tea, boxes of dried fish, doodlebones,

  pieces of sea-weed, dry, pieces of eight,

  all the balloon of the shroud on the floor

  And the lights from little tinkly Washington St.

  Behung, dim, opium pipes and gong wars,


  Tong, the rice and the card game—and

  Tibbet de tibbet the tink tink tink

  them Chinese cooks do in the kitchen

  Jazz

  The thrashing doves in the dark, white fear,

  my eyes reflect that liquidly

  and I no understand Buddha-fear?

  awakener’s fear? So I give warnings

  ‘bout midnight round about midnight

  And tell all the children the little otay

  story of magic, multiple madness, maya

  otay, magic trees-sitters and little girl

  bitters, and littlest lil brothers

  in crib made made of clay (blue in the moon).

  For the doves.

  1956?

  1959

  The Buddhist Saints are the incomparable saints

  Wooing continue of lovemilk, mewling

  And purling with lovely voices for love,

  For perfect compassionate pity

  Without making one false move

  of action,

  Perfectly accomodating commiserations

  For all sentient belaboring things.

  Passive Sweetsaints

  Waiting for your Holyhood

  Hoping for your eventual join

  In their bright confraternity.

  Perfect Divines. I can name some.

  What’s in a name. They were saints

  Of the Religion of the Awakening

  From the Dream of Existence

  And Non-Existence.

  They know that life and death

  The knowing of life, muteness of death,

  Are mutual dual twin opposites

  Conceptioning on each side of the Truth

  Which is the pivot in the Center

  And which says: “Neither life

  nor death—neither existence

  nor non-existence—but the central

  lapse and absence of them both.”

  1956?

  HOW TO MEDITATE

  —lights out—

  fall, hands a-clasped, into instantaneous

  ecstasy like a shot of heroin or morphine,

  the gland inside of my brain discharging

  the good glad fluid (Holy Fluid) as

  I hap-down and hold all my body parts

  down to a deadstop trance—Healing

  all my sicknesses—erasing all—not

  even the shred of a “I-hope-you” or a

  Loony Balloon left in it, but the mind

  blank, serene, thoughtless. When a thought

  comes a-springing from afar with its held-

  forth figure of image, you spoof it out,

  you spuff it off, you fake it, and

  it fades, and thought never comes—and

  with joy you realize for the first time

  “Thinking’s just like not thinking—

  So I don’t have to think

  any

  more”

  1967

  A PUN FOR AL GELPI

  Jesus got mad one day

  at an apricot tree.

  He said, “Peter, you

  of the Holy See,

  Go see if the tree is ripe.”

  “The tree is not yet ripe,”

  reported back Peter the Rock.

  “Then let it wither!”

  Jesus wanted an apricot.

  In the morning, the tree

  had withered,

  Like the ear in the agony

  of the garden,

  Struck down by the sword.

  Unready.

  What means this parable?

  Everybody

  better see.

  You’re really sipping

  When your glass

  is always empty.

  1966

  SEPT. 16, 1961, POEM

  How awfully sad I felt thinking of my sleeping mother in her

  bed

  that she’ll die someday

  tho she herself says “death is nothing to worry about,

  from this life we start to another”

  How awfully sad I felt anyway—

  That have no wine to make me forget my rotting teeth is bad

  enough

  but that my whole body is rotting and my mother’s body is

  rotting

  towards death, it’s all so insanely sad.

  I went outside in the pure dawn: but why should I be glad

  about

  a dawn

  that dawns on another rumor of war,

  and why should I be sad: isnt the air at least pure and fresh?

  I looked at the flowers on the bush: one of them had fallen:

  another was just bloomed open: neither of them were sad or

  glad.

  I suddenly realized all things just come and go

  including any feeling of sadness: that too will go:

  sad today glad tomorrow: somber today drunk tomorrow:

  why fret

  so much?

  Everybody in the world has flaws just like me.

  Why should I put myself down? Which is a feeling just

  coming to go.

  Everything comes and goes. How good it is!

  Evil wars wont stay forever!

  Pleasant forms also go.

  Since everything just comes and goes O why be

  sad? or glad?

  Sick today healthy tomorrow. But O I’m so

  sad just the same!

  Just coming and going all over the place,

  the place itself coming and going.

  We’ll all end up in heaven anyway, together

  in that golden eternal bliss I saw.

  O how damned sad I cant write about it

  well.

  This is an attempt at the easy lightness

  of Ciardian poetry.

  I should really use my own way.

  But that too will go, worries about

  style. About sadness.

  My little happy purring cat hates

  doors!

  And sometimes he’s sad and silent,

  hot nose, sighs,

  and a little heartbroken mew.

  There go the birds, flying west

  a moment.

  Who’s going to ever know the

  world before it goes?

  1962

  RIMBAUD

  Arthur!

  On t’appela pas Jean!

  Born in 1854 cursing in Charle-

  ville thus paving the way for

  the abominable murderousnesses

  of Ardennes—

  No wonder your father left!

  So you entered school at 8

  —Proficient little Latinist you!

  In October of 1869

  Rimbaud is writing poetry

  in Greek French—

  Takes a runaway train

  to Paris without a ticket,

  the miraculous Mexican Brakeman

  throws him off the fast

  train, to Heaven, which

  he no longer travels because

  Heaven is everywhere—

  Nevertheless the old fags

  intervene—

  Rimbaud nonplussed Rimbaud

  trains in the green National

  Guard, proud, marching

  in the dust with his heroes—

  hoping to be buggered,

  dreaming of the ultimate Girl.

  —Cities are bombarded as

  he stares & stares & chews

  his degenerate lip & stares

  with gray eyes at

  Walled France—

  André Gill was forerunner

  to André Gide—

  Long walks reading poems

  in the Genet Haystacks—

  The Voyant is born,

  the deranged seer makes his

  first Manifesto,

  gives vowels colors

  & consonants carking care,

  comes under the influence

  of old French Fai
ries

  who accuse him of constipation

  of the brain & diarrhea

  of the mouth—

  Verlaine summons him to Paris

  with less aplomb than he

  did banish girls to

  Abyssinia—

  “Merde!” screams Rimbaud

  at Verlaine salons—

  Gossip in Paris—Verlaine Wife

  is jealous of a boy

  with no seats to his trousers

  —Love sends money from Brussels

  —Mother Rimbaud hates

  the importunity of Madame

  Veraline—Degenerate Arthur

  is suspected of being a poet

  by now—

  Screaming in the barn

  Rimbaud writes Season in Hell,

  his mother trembles—

  Verlaine sends money & bullets

  into Rimbaud—

  Rimbaud goes to the police

  & presents his innocence

  like the pale innocence

  of his divine, feminine Jesus

  —Poor Verlaine, 2 years

  in the can, but could have

  got a knife in the heart

  —Illuminations! Stuttgart!

  Study of Languages!

  On foot Rimbaud walks

  & looks thru the Alpine

  passes into Italy, looking

  for clover bells, rabbits,

  Genie Kingdoms & ahead

  of him nothing but the old

  Canaletto death of sun

  on old Venetian buildings

  —Rimbaud studies language

  —hears of the Alleghanies,

  of Brooklyn, of last

  American Plages—

  His angel sister dies—

  Vienne! He looks at pastries

  & pets old dogs! I hope!

  This mad cat joins

  the Dutch Army

  & sails for Java

  commanding the fleet

  at midnight

  on the bow, alone,

  no one hears his Command

  but every fishy shining

  in the sea—August is no

  time to stay in Java—

  Aiming at Egypt, he’s again

  hungup in Italy so he goes

  back home to deep armchair

  but immediately he goes

  again, to Cyprus, to

  run a gang of quarry

  workers,—what did he

  look like now, this Later

  Rimbaud?—Rock dust

  & black backs & hacks

  of coughers, the dream rises

  in the Frenchman’s Africa

  mind,—Invalids from

  the tropics are always

  loved—The Red Sea

  in June, the coast clanks

  of Arabia—Havar,

  Havar, the magic trading

  post—Aden, Aden,

  South of Bedouin—

  Ogaden, Ogaden, never

  known—(Meanwhile

  Verlaine sits in Paris

  over cognacs wondering

  what Arthur looks like

  now, & how bleak their

  eyebrows because they believed

  in earlier eyebrow beauty—