The Poetry of Jack Kerouac

by Jack Kerouac

  Who cares? What kinda

  Frenchmen are these?

  Rimbaud, hit me over the

  head with that rock!

  Serious Rimbaud composes

  elegant & learned articles

  for National Geographic

  Societies, & after wars

  commands Harari Girl

  (Ha Ha!) back

  to Abyssinia, & she

  was young, had black

  eyes, thick lips, hair

  curled, & breasts like

  polished brown with

  copper teats & ringlets

  on her arms & joined

  her hands upon her

  central loin & had

  shoulders as broad as

  Arthur’s, & little ears

  —A girl of some

  caste, in Bronzeville—

  Rimbaud also knew

  thinbonehipped Polynesians

  with long tumbling hair

  & tiny tits & big feet

  —

  Finally he starts

  trading illegal guns

  in Tajoura

  riding in caravans, mad,

  with a belt of gold

  around his waist—

  Screwed by King Menelek!

  The Shah of Shoa!

  The noises of these names

  in that noisy French

  mind!

  Cairo for the summer,

  bitter lemon wind

  & kisses in the dusty park

  where girls sit folded

  at dusk thinking

  nothing—

  Havar! Havar!

  By litter to Zeyla

  he’s carried moaning his

  birthday—the boat

  returns to chalk castle

  Marseilles sadder than

  time, than dream,

  sadder than water

  —Carcinoma, Rimbaud

  is eaten by the disease

  of overlife—They cut

  off his beautiful leg—

  He dies in the arms

  of Ste. Isabelle

  his sister

  & before rising to Heaven

  sends his francs

  to Djami, Djami

  the Havari boy

  his body servant

  8 years in the African

  Frenchman’s Hell,

  & it all adds up

  to nothing, like

  Dostoevsky, Beethoven

  or Da Vinci—

  So, poets, rest awhile

  & shut up:

  Nothing ever came

  of nothing.

  1960

  from OLD ANGEL MIDNIGHT

  54.

  peep

  peep the

  bird tear the

  sad bird drop heart

  the dawn has slung

  he aw arrow drape

  to sissyfoo & made eastpink

  dink the dimple solstice men

  crut and so the birds go ttleep

  and now bird number two three four five

  six seven and seven million of em den

  dead bens barking now the birds are yakking

  & barking swinging Crack! Wow! Quiet! the

  birds are making an awful racket in the Row

  tweep? tswip! creet! clink! crack!

  ding dong the bell rope bird of break of day

  O k a y b i r d s q u i e t

  p l e a s e

  you birds

  robins

  black & blue birds

  redbreasts & all

  sisters,——

  my little parents

  have the morning

  by the golden balls

  And over there the sultan forgot

  1959

  MORE OLD ANGEL MIDNIGHT

  Old Angel Midnight the swan of heaven fell

  and flew cockmeek

  Old Angel Midnight the night onta twelve

  Year Tart with the long bing bong

  and the big ding dong

  The boy on the sandbank blooming the moon,

  The sound won’t let me sleep and since I

  found out time is silence Manjusri won’t

  let me hear the swash of snow no mo

  in ole no po

  O A M

  Oh O M

  The old Midnacker snacker tired a twit twit twit

  the Mc Tarty long true

  The yentence peak peck slit slippymeek twang

  twall I’d heerd was flip the hand curse

  lead pencil in the shaky desk

  Ah ow HURT!

  Tantapalii the silken tont retchy swan

  bent necky I wish I had enuf sense to swim

  as I hear

  O lousy tired gal

  One more!

  Choired arranged silence singers imbibing

  belly blum

  Wreck the high charch chichipa and get firm

  juicy thebest thebest no other oil

  has ever heard such peanut squeeze

  On top of which you yold yang midnockitwatter

  lying there in baid imagining casbah concepts

  from a highland fling moorish beach

  by moonlight medallion indicative spidergirls

  with sand legs waiting for the non-Christian

  cock, come O World window Wowf

  & BARK!

  BARK!

  BARK for the girls of Tranatat

  Because by the time those two Mominuan monks

  with girls & boys in their matted hair pans

  sense wind in the flower the golden lord will

  turn the imbecile himself into slip paper

  Or dog paper

  Or that pipe blend birds never peck because

  their bills are too hard

  That window paper

  1961

  Auro Boralis Shomoheen

  In the ancient blue Buick

  Machine that cankers the highway

  With Alice fed Queens, cards

  Indexes burning, mapping machines,

  Parting’s sweet sorrow

  But O my patine

  O my patinat pinkplat Mexican

  Canvas for oil in boil

  Marrico—has marsh m draw

  The greenhouse bong eater from

  fence N’awrleans, that—

  Bat and be ready, Jesus is steady,

  Score’s eight to one, none,

  Bone was the batter for McGoy

  Poy—

  Used as this ditties

  for mopping the kitties

  in dream’s afternoon

  when nap was a drape.

  1953?

  LONG DEAD’S LONGEVITY

  Long dead’s longevity

  Coyote Viejo

  Ugly un handsome old

  puff chin eye crack

  Bone fat face McGee

  In older rains sat by

  new fires

  Plotting unwanted pre

  doomed presupposing

  Odes—long dead

  Riverbottom bum

  Raunchy

  Scrounge

  Brakeman bum

  Wine cans sand sexless

  Silence die tomb

  Pyramid cave snake Satan

  1952?

  SITTING UNDER TREE NUMBER TWO

  But the undrawables,

  the single musical harp

  rainbow’s blue green

  shimmer of a cobweb—

  the line of thread swimming

  in the wind, blue &

  silver at intervals that

  appear & disappear—

  7 songe along the rim

  tying to the plant

  as birds twurdle over

  those massy fort trees

  populous with song

  —imaginary blossoms in my

  eye moving across the

  page with definite oily

  rainbow water holes &

  rims of beaten gold,

  with toads of old
>
  silver.

  Golden fast ant back

  in the hay now fromming

  its feelers thru the

  thicket of time then

  darting across mud looking

  for more trees—

  A little ant bit my ass

  & I said Eeesh with

  my wad of gum—I

  itch & pain all over

  with hate of time &

  tedium Save me!

  Kill me!

  1959

  A CURSE AT THE DEVIL

  Lucifer Sansfoi

  Varlet Sansfoi

  Omer Perdieu

  I. B. Perdie

  Billy Perdy

  I’ll unwind your

  guts from Durham

  to Dover

  and bury em

  in Clover—

  Your psalms I’ll ’ave

  engraved

  in your toothbone—

  Your victories

  nilled—

  You jailed uner

  a woman’s skirt

  of stone—

  Stone blind woman

  with no guts

  and only a scale—

  Your thoughts & letters

  Shandy’d about

  in Beth

  (Gaelic for grave).

  Your philosophies

  run up your nose

  again—

  Your confidences

  and essays bandied

  in ballrooms

  from switchblade

  to switchblade

  —Your final

  duel with

  sledge hammers—

  Your essential

  secret twinned

  to buttercups

  & dying

  Your guide to 32

  European cities

  scabbed in Isaiah

  —Your red beard

  snobbed in

  Dolmen ruins

  in the editions

  of the Bleak—

  Your saints and

  Consolations bereft

  —Your handy volume

  rolled into

  an urn—

  And your father

  and mother besmeared

  at thought of you

  th’unspent begotless

  crop of worms

  —You lay

  there, you

  queen for a

  day, wait

  for the “fen-

  sucked fogs”

  to carp at you

  Your sweety beauty

  discovered by No Name

  in its hidingplace

  til burrs

  part from you

  from lack

  of issue,

  sinew, all

  the rest—

  Gibbering quiver

  graveyard HOO!

  The hospital

  that buries you

  be Baal,

  the digger

  Yorrick

  & the shoveler

  groom—

  My rosy tomatoes

  pop squirting

  from your awful

  rotten grave—

  Your profile,

  erstwhile

  Garboesque,

  mistook by earth—

  eels for some

  fjord to

  Sheol—

  And your timid

  voice box

  strangled

  by lie-hating

  earth

  forever.

  May the plighted

  Noah-clouds

  dissolve in grief

  of you—

  May Red clay

  be your center

  & woven into necks

  of hogs, boars,

  booters & pilferers

  & burned down

  with Stalin, Hitler

  & the rest—

  May you bite

  your lip that

  you cannot

  meet with God—

  or

  Beat me to a pub

  —Amen

  The Almoner,

  his cup hath

  no bottom,

  nor I

  a brim.

  Devil, get thee

  back

  to russet caves.

  1965

  Sight is just dust,

  Obey it must.

  Mind alone

  Introduced the bone.

  Fire just feeds

  On fiery deeds.

  Only mind

  The flame so kind.

  Water from the moon

  Appears very soon.

  Mind is the sea

  Made water agree.

  Wind in the trees

  Is a mental breeze.

  Wind rose deep

  From empty sleep.

  Space in the ground

  Was dirt by the pound.

  Devoid of space

  Is the mind of grace.

  1955?

  POEM

  How’d they ever get that tap

  outa me?

  Wasnt I tired givin?

  hard tap

  Family tree.

  I wasnt sweet givin.

  1955?

  TO EDWARD DAHLBERG

  Don’t use the telephone.

  People are never ready to answer it.

  Use poetry.

  1970

  TWO POEMS

  Wee wee wee poem

  angel smoke

  We wee not-worth-reading

  little poem

  You start off by suckin in

  milk

  And you end up suckin in

  smoke

  And you know

  What milk and smoke

  Denote

  1957

  TO ALLEN GINSBERG

  Usta smear ma lips with whiskey

  Fred and open up the doors

  to make a joke—while

  women waited

  and Bert Lahr waited

  playing what he wanted

  like Duke Ellington

  used to sit staring at Seymour

  who implied to me the swing

  of the music by his

  low crash

  high abidin

  shoulders,

  Pap,

  and what how who?

  T H O T H A T N A P E

  Compose Vehicle

  Special

  Banana

  Nine

  1959

  POEM

  Jazz killed itself

  But dont let poetry kill itself

  Dont be afraid

  of the cold night air

  Dont listen to institutions

  when you return manuscripts to

  brownstone

  dont bow & scuffle

  for Edith Wharton pioneers

  or ursula major nebraska prose

  just hang in your own backyard

  & laugh play pretty

  cake trombone

  & if somebody give you beads

  juju, jew, or otherwise,

  sleep with em around your neck

  Your dreams’ll maybe better

  There’s no rain

  there’s no me,

  I’m tellin ya man

  sure as shit.

  1959

  TO HARPO MARX

  O Harpo! When did you seem like an angel

  the last time?

  and played the gray harp of gold?

  When did you steal the silverware

  and bug-spray the guests?

  When did your brother find rain

  in your sunny courtyard?

  When did you chase your last blonde

  across the Millionairesses’ lawn

  with a bait hook on a line

  protruding from your bicycle?

  Or when last you powderpuffed

  your white flour face

  with fishbarrel cover?

  Harpo! Who was that Lion

  I saw you with?r />
  How did you treat the midget

  and Konk the giant?

  Harpo, in your recent night-club appearance

  in New Orleans were you old?

  Were you still chiding with your horn

  in the cane at your golden belt?

  Did you still emerge from your pockets

  another Harpo, or screw on

  new wrists?

  Was your vow of silence an Indian Harp?

  1959

  HITCH HIKER

  “Tryna get to sunny Californy”—

  Boom. It’s the awful raincoat

  making me look like a selfdefeated self-

  murdering imaginary gangster, an idiot in

  a rueful coat, how can they understand

  my damp packs—my mud packs—

  “Look Joh, a hitchhiker”

  “He looks like he’s got a gun underneath

  that I.R.A. coat”

  “Look Fred, that man by the road”

  “Some sexfiend got in print in 1938

  in Sex Magazine”—

  “You found his blue corpse in a

  greenshade edition, with axe blots”

  1967

  FOUR POEMS from “SAN FRANCISCO BLUES”

  1

  The rooftop of the beatup

  tenement

  on 3rd & Harrison

  has Belfast painted

  black on yellow

  on the side

  the old Frisco wood is

  shown with weatherbeaten

  rainboards, & a

  washed out blue bottle

  once painted for wild

  commercial reasons by

  an excited seltzerite

  as firemen came last

  afternoon & raised the

  ladder to a fruitless

  fire that was not there,

  so, is Belfast singing

  in this time

  when brand’s forgotten

  taste washed in

  rain the gullies broadened

  and everybody gone

  and acrobats of the

  tenement

  who dug bel fast

  divers all

  and the divers all dove

  ah

  little girls make

  shadows on the

  sidewalk shorter

  than the shadow

  of death

  in this town—

  2

  Somewhere in this snow

  I see little children raped

  By maniacal sex fiends

  Eager to make a break

  But the F.B.I.

  In the form of Ted

  Stands waiting

  Hand on gun

  In the Paranoiac

  Summer time

  To come.

  3

  Eccentrics from out of town

  Better not fill in

  this blank

  For a job on my gray boat

  And Monkeysuits I furnish.

  Sober serious

  Marcelle-waved

  Heroes only.

  4

  And

  The taste of worms

  Is soft & salty

  Like the sea