by Jack Kerouac
With the same quiet steady smile Billie says “Oh you’re so fucking neurotic!”
I simply get mad and dump earth over the garbage and tromp it all down and say “The hell with all this madness!”
I get mad and stomp up on the porch and throw myself in the canvas chair and close my eyes—Dave Wain says he’s going down the road to investigate the canyon a bit and when he comes back the girls will have finished packing and we’ll all leave—Dave goes off, the girls clean up and sweep, the little kid is sleeping and suddenly hopelessly and completely finished I sit there in the hot sun and close my eyes: and there’s the golden swarming peace of Heaven in my eyelids—It comes with a sure hand a soft blessing as big as it is beneficent, i.e., endless—I’ve fallen asleep.
I’ve fallen asleep in a strange way, with my hands clasped behind my head thinking I’m just going to sit there and think, but I’m sleeping like that, and when I wake up just one short minute later I realize the two girls are both sitting behind me in absolute silence—When I’d sat down they were sweeping, but now they were squatting behind my back, facing each other, not a word—I turn and see them there—Blessed relief has come to me from just that minute—Everything has washed away—I’m perfectly normal again—Dave Wain is down the road looking at fields and flowers—I’m sitting smiling in the sun, the birds sing again, all’s well again.
I still cant understand it.
Most of all I cant understand the miraculousness of the silence of the girls and the sleeping boy and the silence of Dave Wain in the fields—Just a golden wash of goodness has spread over all and over all my body and mind—All the dark torture is a memory—I know now I can get out of there, we’ll drive back to the City, I’ll take Billie home, I’ll say goodbye to her properly, she wont commit no suicide or do anything wrong, she’ll forget me, her life’ll go on, Romana’s life will go on, old Dave will manage somehow, I’ll forgive them and explain everything (as I’m doing now)—And Cody, and George Baso, and ravened McLear and perfect starry Fagan, they’ll all pass through one way or the other—I’ll stay with Monsanto at his home a few days and he’ll smile and show me how to be happy awhile, we’ll drink dry wine instead of sweet and have quiet evenings in his home—Arthur Ma will come to quietly draw pictures at my side—Monsanto will say “That’s all there is to it, take it easy, everything’s okay, dont take things too serious, it’s bad enough as it is without you going the deep end over imaginary conceptions just like you always said yourself”—I’ll get my ticket and say goodbye on a flower day and leave all San Francisco behind and go back home across autumn America and it’ll all be like it was in the beginning—Simple golden eternity blessing all—Nothing ever happened—Not even this—St. Carolyn by the Sea will go on being golden one way or the other—The little boy will grow up and be a great man—There’ll be farewells and smiles—My mother’ll be waiting for me glad—The corner of the yard where Tyke is buried will be a new and fragrant shrine making my home more homelike somehow—On soft Spring nights I’ll stand in the yard under the stars—Something good will come out of all things yet—And it will be golden and eternal just like that—There’s no need to say another word.
“SEA”
Sounds of the Pacific Ocean at Big Sur
“SEA”
Cherson!
Cherson!
You aint just whistlin
Dixie, Sea—
Cherson! Cherson!
We calcimine fathers
here below!
Kitchen lights on—
Sea Engines from Russia
seabirding here below—
When rocks outsea froth
I’ll know Hawaii
cracked up & scramble
up my doublelegged cliff
to the silt of
a million years—
Shoo—Shaw—Shirsh—
Go on die salt light
You billion yeared
rock knocker
Gavroom
Seabird
Gabroobird
Sad as wife & hill
Loved as mother & fog
Oh! Oh! Oh!
Sea! Osh!
Where’s yr little Neppytune
tonight?
These gentle tree pulp pages
which’ve nothing to do
with yr crash roar,
liar sea, ah,
were made for rock
tumble seabird digdown
footstep hollow weed
move bedarvaling
crash? Ah again?
Wine is salt here?
Tidal wave kitchen?
Engines of Russia
in yr soft talk—
Les poissons de la mer
parle Breton—
Mon nom es Lebris
de Keroack—
Parle, Poissons, Loti,
parle—
Parlning Ocean sanding
crash the billion rocks—
Ker plotsch—
Shore—shoe—
god—brash—
The headland looks like
a longnosed Collie sleeping
with his light on his
nose, as the ocean,
obeying its accomodations
of mind, crashes in
rhythm which could
& will intrude, in thy
rhythm of sand
thought—
—Big frigging shoulders
on that sonofabitch
Parle, O, parle, mer, parle,
Sea speak to me, speak
to me, your silver you light
Where hole opened up in Alaska
Gray—shh—wind in
The canyon wind in the rain
Wind in the rolling rash
Moving and t wedel
Sea
sea
Diving sea
O bird—la vengeance
De la roche
Cossez
Ah
Rare, he rammed the gate
rare over by Cherson, Cherson,
we calcify fathers here below
—a watery cross, with weeds
entwined—This grins restoredly,
low sleep—Wave—Oh, no,
shush—Shirk—Boom plop
Neptune now his arms extends
while one millions of souls
sit lit in caves of darkness
—What old bark? The dog
mountain? Down by the Sea
Engines? God rush—Shore—
Shaw—Shoo—Oh soft sigh
we wait hair twined like
larks—Pissit—Rest not
—Plottit, bisp tesh, cashes,
re tav, plo, aravow,
shirsh,—Who’s whispering over
there—the silly earthen creek!
The fog thunders—We put
silver light on face—We
took the heroes in—A billion
years aint nothing—
O the cities here below!
The men with a thousand
arms! the stanchions of
their upward gaze! the
coral of their poetry! the
sea dragons tenderized, meat
for fleshy fish—
Navark, navark, the fishes
of the Sea speak Breton—
wash as soft as people’s
dreams—We got peoples
in & out the shore, they call
it shore, sea call it
pish rip plosh—The
5 billion years since
chan—Chinese are
the waves—the woods
are dreaming
No human words bespeak
the token sorrow older
than old this wave
becrashing smarts the
sand with plosh
of twirléd sandy
thought—Ah change
the world? Ah set
the fee? Are rope the
angels in all the sea?
Ah ropey otter
barnacle’d be—
Ah cave, Ah crosh!
A feathery sea
Too much short—Where
Miss Nop tonight?
Wroten Kerarc’h
in the labidalian
aristotelian park
with slime a middle
—And Ranti forner
who pulled pearls by
rope to throne
the King by
the roll in the
forest of everseas?
Not everseas, be seas
—Creep
Crash
The woman with her body
in the sea—The frog who
never moves & thunders, sharsh
—The snake with his body
under the sand—The dog
with the light on his nose,
supine, with shoulders so
enormous they reach back to
rain crack—The leaves hasten
to the sea—We let them
hasten to be wetted & give
em that old salt change, a
nuder think will make you see
they originate from the We Sea
anyway—No dooming booms
on Sunday afternoons—We
run thru the core of cliffs,
blam up caves, disengage no
jelly or jellied pendant
thinkers—
Our armies of
anchored seaweed in the
coves give of the smell
of jellied salt—
Reach, reach, some leaves
havent hastened near
enuf—Roll, roll, purl
the sand shark floor
a greeny pali andarva
—Ah back—Ah forth—
Ah shish—Boom, away,
doom, a day—Vein we
firm—The sea is We—
Parle, parle, boom the
earth—Arree—Shaw,
Sho, Shoosh, flut,
ravad, tapavada pow,
coof, loof, roof,—
No,no,no,no,no,no—
Oh ya, ya, ya, yo, yair—
Shhh—
Which one? the one? Which
one? The one ploshed—
The ploshed one? the same,
ah boom—Who’s that ant
that giant golden saltchange
ant magnifying my mountain
of feet? ’Tis Finder, finding
the change in thought to join
the boomer hangers in the
cave a light—And built a
house above it? Never fear,
naver foir, les bretons qui
parlent la langue de la Mar
sont español comme le cul
du Kurd qui dit le maha
prajna paramita du Sud?
Ah oui! Ke Vlum!
Glum sea, silent me—
They aint about to try
it them ants who wear
out tunnels in a week
the tunnel a million years
won—no—Down around
the headland slobs for weed,
the chicken of the sea
go yak! they sleep—
Aroar, aroar, arah, aroo—
Otter me otter me daughter me sea
—me last blue lagoon inside of
me, the sea—Divine is the
substance all over the Sea—
Of space we speak &
hasten—Let no mouth
swallow the sea—Gavril—
Gavro—the Cherson Chinese
& Old Fingernail sea—Is
ringin yr ear? Dier, dee?
Is Virgin you trying to
fathom me
Tiresome old sea, aint you sick
& tired of all of this merde?
this incessant boom boom
& sand walk—you people
hoary rockies here to Fuegie
& never get sad? Or despair
like a German phoney?
Just gloom booboom & green
on foggy nights—the fog is part
of us—
I know, but tired
as I can be listening to all
this silly majesty—
Bashô!
Lao!
Pop!
Who is this fish
sitting unsunk? Run up
a Hawaii typhoon smash him
against his rock—We’ll jelly you,
jellied man, show you essential
jello of the sea—King
of the Sea.
No Monarc’h ever Irish be?
Ju see the Irish sea?
Green winds on tamarack vines—
Joyce—James—Shhish—
Sea—Sssssss—see
—Varash
—mnavash la vache
écriture—the sea dont say
muc’h actually—
Gosh, she,
huzzy, tow, led men
on, Ulysses and all them
fair headed moin—
Terplash, & what difference
make! One little white
spark of light!
Hair woven hands
Penelope seaboat
smeller—Courtiers in
Telemachus ’sguise
dropedary dropedary
creep—Or—
Franc gold rippled
that undersea creek
where fish fish for
fisher men—Salteen
breen the wet Souwesters
of old Portugee Prayers
Tsall tangled, changed,
salt & drop the sand
& weed & water brains
entangled—Rats
of old Venetian yellers
Ariel Calibanned
to Roma Port—
Pow—spell—
Speak you parler,
in this my mother’s
parlor, wash your
undershoes when you
come in, say thanks
to foggy moon
Go brash, Topahta
offat,—we’ll gray
ye rose—Morning
primord creeper sees
the bird of paravision
dying tweet the yellow
mouthroof! How sweet
the earth, yells sand!
Xcept when tumble
boom!
O we wait too
for Heaven—all
in One—
All is there
in fair & sight
I’m going to wash now
old Pavia down,
& pack my salt
to Either Town—
Cliffs of Antique
aint got no rose,
the morning’s seen
the ledder pose—
Boom de boom dey
the sea is me—
We are the sea—
It aint all snow
We wash Fujiyama down
soon, & sand
crookbird back—
We hie bash
rock—ak—
Long short—
Low and easy—
Wind & many freezing
bottoms on luckrock—
Rappaport—
Endymion thou tangled
dreamer love my thigh
—Rose, Of Shelley,
Rose, O Urns!
Ogled urns in fish eye
Cinco sea the Chico sea
the Magellan headland sea
—What hype sidereal did he put down
bending beatnik sea goatee
over old goat manuscripts
to find the other side of Flat?
See round, see the end of me?
Rounden huge bedoom?
Awp hole cave & shwrul—
sand & salt & hair eyes
—Strong enuf to make
coffee grow in your hair—
Whose plantation Neptune got?
That of Atlas still down there,
Hesperid’s his feet, Sur his sleet,
Irish Sea fingertip
& Cornwall aye his soul
bedoom
Shurning—Shurning—plop
be dosh—This sigh old learning’s
high beside me—Rough
old hands have played out