The Poetry of Jack Kerouac

by Jack Kerouac

  awake, the compassion in the sound of silence, the

  swarming myriad trillionaire you are.

  53

  Everything’s alright, form is emptiness and

  emptiness is form, and we’re here forever, in

  one form or another, which is empty. Everything’s

  alright, we’re not here, there, or anywhere.

  Everything’s alright, cats sleep.

  54

  The everlasting and tranquil essence, look around

  and see the smiling essence everywhere. How

  wily was the world made, Maya, not-even-made.

  55

  There’s the world in the daylight. If it was

  completely dark you wouldnt see it but it would

  still be there. If you close your eyes you really see

  what it’s like: mysterious particle-swarming

  emptiness. On the moon big mosquitos of straw

  know this in the kindness of their hearts. Truly

  speaking, unrecognizably sweet it all is.

  Dont worry about nothing.

  56

  Imaginary judgments about things, in this

  Nothing-Ever-Happened wonderful Void,

  you dont even have to reject them, let alone

  accept them. “That looks like a tree, let’s

  call it a tree,” said Coyote to Earthmaker at

  the beginning, and they walked around the

  rootdrinker patting their bellies.

  57

  Perfectly selfless, the beauty of it, the butterfly

  doesnt take it as a personal achievement, he just

  disappears through the trees. You too, kind and

  humble and not-even-here, it wasnt in a greedy

  mood that you saw the light that belongs to

  everybody.

  58

  Look at your little finger, the emptiness of it is

  no different than the emptiness of infinity.

  59

  Cats yawn because they realize

  that there’s nothing to do.

  60

  Up in heaven you wont remember all these

  tricks of yours. You wont even sigh “Why?”

  Whether as atomic dust or as great cities, what’s

  the difference in all this stuff. A tree is still

  only a rootdrinker. The puma’s twisted face

  continues to look at the blue sky with sightless

  eyes, Ah sweet divine and indescribable verdurous

  paradise planted in mid-air! Caitanya, it’s only

  consciousness. Not with thoughts of your mind,

  but in the believing sweetness of your heart,

  you snap the link and open the golden door

  and disappear into the bright room, the everlasting

  ecstasy, eternal Now. Soldier, follow me!—there

  never was a war. Arjuna, dont fight!—why

  fight over nothing? Bless and sit down.

  61

  I remember that I’m supposed to be a man and

  consciousness and I focus my eyes and the

  print reappears and the words of the poor book

  are saying, “The world, as God has made it”

  and there are no words in my pitying heart

  to express the knowless loveliness of the

  trance there was before I read those words,

  I had no such idea there was a world.

  62

  This world has no marks, signs or evidence of

  existence, nor the noises in it, like accident

  of wind or voices or heehawing animals,

  yet listen closely the eternal hush of silence

  goes on and on throughout all this, and has been

  going on, and will go on and on. This is because

  the world is nothing but a dream and is just thought

  of and the everlasting eternity pays no attention

  to it. At night under the moon, or in a quiet

  room, hush now, the secret music of the Unborn

  goes on and on, beyond conception, awake beyond

  existence. Properly speaking, awake is not really

  awake because the golden eternity never went to

  sleep: you can tell by the constant sound of

  Silence which cuts through this world like a

  magic diamond through the trick of your not

  realizing that your mind caused the world.

  63

  The God of the American Plateau Indian was

  Coyote. He says: “Earth! those beings living on

  your surface, none of them disappearing, will

  all be transformed. When I have spoken to them,

  when they have spoken to me, from that moment

  on, their words and their bodies which they

  usually use to move about with, will all change.

  I will not have heard them.”

  64

  I was smelling flowers in the yard, and when

  I stood up I took a deep breath and the blood all

  rushed to my brain and I woke up dead on my

  back in the grass. I had apparently fainted,

  or died, for about sixty seconds. My neighbor

  saw me but he thought I had just suddenly

  thrown myself on the grass to enjoy the sun.

  During that timeless moment of unconsciousness

  I saw the golden eternity. I saw heaven. In it

  nothing had ever happened, the events of a

  million years ago were just as phantom and

  ungraspable as the events of now or of a million

  years from now, or the events of the next ten

  minutes. It was perfect, the golden solitude, the

  golden emptiness, Something-Or-Other, something

  surely humble. There was a rapturous ring of

  silence abiding perfectly. There was no question

  of being alive or not being alive, of likes and

  dislikes, of near or far, no question of giving

  or gratitude, no question of mercy or judgment,

  or of suffering or its opposite or anything.

  It was the womb itself, aloneness, alaya vijnana

  the universal store, the Great Free Treasure, the

  Great Victory, infinite completion, the joyful

  mysterious essence of Arrangement. It seemed

  like one smiling smile, one adorable adoration,

  one gracious and adorable charity, everlasting

  safety, refreshing afternoon, roses, infinite

  brilliant immaterial golden ash, the Golden Age.

  The “golden” came from the sun in my eyelids,

  and the “eternity” from my sudden instant

  realization as I woke up that I had just

  been where it all came from and where it

  was all returning, the everlasting So, and

  so never coming or going; therefore I call it

  the golden eternity but you can call it anything

  you want. As I regained consciousness I felt so sorry

  I had a body and a mind suddenly realizing I

  didnt even have a body and a mind and nothing

  had ever happened and everything is alright

  forever and forever and forever, O thank you

  thank you thank you.

  65

  This is the first teaching from

  the golden eternity.

  66

  The second teaching from the golden eternity

  is that there never was a first teaching

  from the golden eternity. So be sure.

  Old Angel Midnight

  Dedicated to

  Lucien Carr

  the initial inspiration for

  Old Angel Midnight

  1Friday Afternoon In The Universe, in all directions in & out you got your men women dogs children horses pones tics perts parts pans pools palls pails parturiences and petty Thi
everies that turn into heavenly Buddha—I know boy what’s I talkin about case I made the world & when I made it I no lie & had Old Angel Midnight for my name and concocted up a world so nothing you had forever thereafter make believe it’s real—but that’s alright because now everything’ll be alright & we’ll soothe the forever boys & girls & before we’re thru we’ll find a name for this Goddam Golden Eternity & tell a story too—and but d y aver read a story as vast as this that begins Friday Afternoon with workinmen on scaffolds painting white paint & ants merlying in lil black dens & microbes warring in yr kidney & mesaroolies microbing in the innards of mercery & microbe microbes dreaming of the ultimate microbe-hood which then ultimates outward to the endless vast empty atom which is this imaginary universe, ending nowhere & ne’er e’en born as Bankei well poled when he ferried his mother over the rocks to Twat You Tee and people visit his hut to enquire “What other planet features this?” & he answers “What other planet?” tho the sounds of the entire world are now swimming thru this window from Mrs McCartiola’s twandow & Ole Poke’s home dronk again & acourse you hear the cats wailing in the wailbar wildbar wartfence moonlight midnight Angel Dolophine immensity Visions of the Tathagata’s Seat of Purity & Womb so that here is all this infinite immaterial meadowlike golden ash swimswarming in our enlighten brains & the silence Shh shefallying in our endless ear & still we refuse naked & blank to hear What the Who? the Who? Too What You? will say the diamond boat & Persepine, Recipine, Mill town, Heroine, & Fack matches the silver ages everlasting swarmswallying in a simple broom—and at night ya raise the square white light from your ghost beneath a rootdrinkin tree & Coyote wont hear ya but you’ll ward off the inexistency devils just to pass the time away & meanwhile it’s timeless to the ends of the last lightyear it might as well be gettin late Friday afternoon where we start so’s old Sound can come home when worksa done & drink his beer & tweak his children’s eyes—

  2and what talents it takes to bail boats out you’d never flank till flail pipe throwed howdy who was it out the bar of the seven seas and all the Italians of 7th Street in Sausaleety slit sleet with paring knives that were used in the ream kitchens to cut the innards of gizzards out on a board, wa, twa, wow, why, shit, Ow, man, I’m tellin you—Wait—We bait the rat and forget to mark the place and soon Cita comes and eat it and puke out grit—fa yen pas d cas, fa yen pas d case, chanson d idiot, imbecile, vas malade—la sonora de madrigal—but as soon as someone wants to start then the world takes on these new propensities:

  1.Bardoush

  (the way the craydon bi fa shta ma j en vack)

  2.Flaki—arrete—interrupted chain saw sting eucalyptus words inside the outside void that good God we cant believe is anything so arsaphallawy any the pranaraja of madore with his bloody arse kegs, shit—go to three.

  3Finally just about the time they put wood to the poets of France & fires broke out recapitulating the capitulation of the continent of Mu located just south of Patch, Part, with his hair askew and wearing goldring ears & Vaseline Hair Oil in his arse ass hole flaunted all the old queers and lecherous cardinals who wrote (write) pious manuals & announced that henceforth he was to be the sole provender provider this side of Kissthat.

  Insteada which hey marabuda you son of a betch you cucksucker you hey hang dat board down here I’ll go cot you on the Yewneon ya bum ya—lick, lock, lick, lock, mix it for pa-tit a a lamana lacasta reda va da Poo moo koo—la—swinging Friday afternoon in eternity here comes Kee pardawac with long golden robe flowing through the Greek Islands with a Bardic (forgot) with a lard (?) with a marde manual onder his Portugee Tot Sherry Rotgut, singing “Kee ya.”

  Tried to warn all of you, essence of stuff wont do—God why did you make the world?

  Answer: – Because I gwt pokla renamash ta va in ming the atss are you forever with it?

  I like the bliss of mind.

  Awright I’ll call up all the fuckin Gods, right now! Parya! Arrive! Ya damn hogfuckin lick lip twillerin fishmonger! Kiss my purple royal ass baboon! Poota! Whore! You and yr retinues of chariots & fucks! Devadatta! Angel of Mercy! Prick! Lover! Mush! Run on ya dog eared kiss willying nilly Dexter Michigan ass-war-lerin ratpole! The rat in my cellar’s an old canuck who wasnt fooled by rebirth but b God gotta admit I was born for the same reason I bring this glass to my lip—?

  Rut! Old God whore, the key to ecstasy is forever-more furthermore blind! Potanyaka! God of Mercy! Boron O Mon Boron! All of ye! Rush! Ghosts & evil spirits, if you appear I’m saved. How can you fool an old man with a stove & wine drippin down his chin? The flowers are my little sisters and I love them with a dear heart. Ashcans turn to snow and milk when I look. I know sinister alleys. I had a vision of Han Shan a darkened by sun bum in odd rags standing short in the gloom scarey to see. Poetry, all these vicious writers and bores & Scriptural Apocraphylizers fucking their own dear mothers because they want ears to sell—

  And the axe haiku.

  All the little fine angels amercyin and this weary prose hand handling dumb pencils like in school long ago the first redsun special. Henry Millers everywhere Fridaying the world—Rexroths. Rexroths not a bad egg. Creeley. Creeley. Real magination realizing rock roll rip snortipatin oyster stew of Onatona Scotiat Shores where six birds week the nest and part wasted his twill till I.

  Mush. Wish. Wish I could sing ya songs of a perty nova spotia patonapeein pack wallower wop snot polly—but caint—cause I’ll get sick & die anyway & you too, born to die, little flowers. Fiorella. Look around. The burlap’s buried in the wood on an angle, axe haiku. La religion c’est d la marde! Pa! d la marde! J m en dor.—

  God’s asleep dreaming, we’ve got to wake him up! Then all of a sudden when we’re asleep dreaming, he comes and wakes us up—how gentle! How are you Mrs Jones? Fine Mrs Smith! Tit within Tat—Eye within Tooth—Bone within Light, like—Drop some little beads of sweetness in that stew (O Phoney Poetry!)—the heart of the onion—That stew’s too good for me to eat, you!—

  People, shmeople

  4Boy, says Old Angel, this amazing nonsensical rave of yours wherein I spose you’d think you’d in some lighter time find hand be-almin ya for the likes of what ya davote yaself to, pah—bum with a tail only means one thing,—They know that in sauerkraut bars, god the chew chew & the wall lips—And not only that but all them in describable paradises—aye ah—Old Angel m boy—Jack, the born with a tail bit is a deal that you never dream’d to redeem—verify—try to see as straight—you wont believe even in God but tbe devil worries you—you & Mrs Tourian—great gaz-zuz & I’d as lief be scoured with a leaf rust as hear this poetizin horseshit everyhere I want to hear the sounds thru the window you promised me when the Midnight bell on 7th St did toll bing bong & Burroughs and Ginsberg were asleep & you lay on the couch in that timeless moment in the little red bulblight bus & saw drapes of eternity parting for your hand to begin & so’s you could affect—& eeffect—the total turningabout & deep revival of world robeflowing literature till it shd be something a man’d put his eyes on & continually read for the sake of reading & for the sake of the Tongue & not just these insipid stories writ in insipid aridities & paranoias bloomin & why yet the image—let’s hear the Sound of the Universe, son, & no more part twaddle—And dont expect nothing from me, my middle name is Opprobrium, Old Angel Midnight Opprobrium, boy, O.A.M.O.—

  Pirilee pirilee, tzwé tzwi tzwa,—tack tick—birds & firewood. The dream is already ended and we’re already awake in the golden eternity.

  5Then when rat tooth come ravin and fradilaboodala back-ala backed up, trip tripped himself and fell falling on top of Old Smokey because his pipe was not right, had no molasses in it, tho it looked like a morasses brarrel, but then the cunts came. She had a long cunt that sitick out of her craw a mile long like Mexican Drawings showing hungry drinkers reaching Surrealistic Thirsts with lips like Aztec—Akron Lehman the Hart Crane Hero of Drunken Records came full in her cunt spoffing & overflowing white enlightened seminal savior juice out of his canal-hole into her hungry rive
r bed and that made the old nannies gab and kiss that.

  60 he was quite racy—real estate queen—Europe & Niles—for pleasure—stom stomp absulute raze making noise—I can write them but I cant puctuate them—then he said comma comma comma—That skinny guy with black hair—Atlean Rage—in India in the last year he’s getting even ignoring all common publications & getting Urdu Nothing Sanskrit by Sir Yak Yak Yak forty page thing Norfolk—let’s all get drunk I wanta take pictures—dont miss with Mrs. lately in trust picture pitcher pithy lisp—that’s an artistic kit for sex—Trying to think of a rule in Sankrit Mamma Sanskrit Sounding obviously twins coming in here Milltown Equinell Miopa Parte Watacha Peemana Kowava you get sticky ring weekends & wash the tub, Bub—I’ll be gentle like a Iamb in the Bible—Beautiful color yr lipstick thanx honey—Got a match Max?—Taxi crabs & murdercycles—Let’s go to Trilling & ask him—I gotta wash my conduct—Dont worry about nothin—I love Allen Ginsberg—Let that be recorded in heaven’s unchangeable heart—Either bway—Rapples—Call up Allen Price Jones—Who is that?—They re having fun on the bed there—Soo de ya bee la—And there came the picture of Ang Bong de Beela—Fuck it or get it in or wait something for the bee slime—Then the ants’ll crawl over bee land—Ants in bands wailing neath my bloody ow pants, owler pants—Ta da ba dee—He thinlis I’m competive in a long pleasant souse of Wishing all of ye bleed stay meditation everybody martini destroy my black—Allen ye better voice the stare, this beer these room sandwiches—Where did you get these? Big greasy socialists—Are you gonna konk, Allen? Mighty tall in the saddle—Anybody got a ceegiboo?—The moon is a piece of tea—(Under the empty blue sky, vertebrate zoology.)

  7And make the most malign detractor eat from the love of the lamb—and the pot that’s for everybody not diminish when somebody comes—Tathagata, give me that—

  Visions of Al

  Women are so variously beautiful it’s such a pleasure