by Jack Kerouac
Frost fences —
McGillicuddy’ll
make his comeback —
The Canucks are
ignorant, vulgar,
cold hearted — I
dont like them —
No one else does —
Moreover Kirouac
has always been an
unpopular name
among Canucks, for
Breton reasons I
guess — something
hotheaded independent
& brilliant makes
yr paisan bristle
with suspicion —
Noel was a whole
chunk of suspicion
— I shoulda
spattered him in
the street
And that would
tear my clothes
break my watch no
thanks —
In America the
birch is grievous,
lost, rich, poetic
— the woods are
haunted — a meaning
was united in this
bleak — I know
the dead Dutchman
of Saybrook never
cared for the
name Kirouac —
but I have cared
for ye dutchmen —
It is my prerogative
to believe, in my
own way, in what
haunts my conscience
& fulfills my hope —
I know there’s nothing
down the line but
gray indifference, the
earth-covering excrescence
of mean men —
That I was born into
a beastly world with
all the traits in
myself — & God
will crown my head
with grave dung —
but I have sung
the pale rainy lakes
in this chokéd craw
of mine & will
sing again — &
mine enemies look
me in the eye
if they will, or
be still
The moon’s
dropping a
tired pious
drape
A Whitman song
of New England in
Winter! — the
coasts, the white
sprays of shipping off
N.B., the r.r. brakeman’s
eyes slitting in the
long New London dawn
— the covered bridges
of Vermont, tunnels
of love of old hay
rides in other harvest
moons — The shiney
snake in the bog,
the mad bongoeer
in the dark shore
of Nancy Point —
the blue windows of
mills, of Boston ware-
houses — Wink of Chinee
neon in Portland Maine
A big piece of myself is stuck
is choking me in my throat
My belief in the Holy Ghost
less and less — it’s fading
— It must not fade, but
return — Return, Holy Ghost
March 30 1953
PLANS FOR NEW WRITING
“Newspaper accounts”
of what happened, short
ones or long “novel” ones,
with moral theme . . . since
that is the final question,
do we live or die bleak.
— Fullscale explanations
in unpausing sometimes
hallucinated prose, of
these things, —
(No — continue with
Duluoz Legend)
Spring in Long Island
Not a blue sky clean
Spring but a mixed
new-haze day smelling
of faint Spring smokes
— a chill wind
makes washlines sway
— a gray horizon, a
radiant sun behind
clouds — in little
snake mottled trees
balls of Spring bole
hang like decorations,
wave —
Six million diesels
churring & vibrating
in the yards, waiting
for fueling — The
tenderness pale clouds
that in the exact
zenith mix with
the pale pure
blue — Among the
bushes the carpet of
caterpillar hair —
The basketball
players of the
open cement court
are wheeling &
whistling — a ball’s
suspended in air, a
Scandinavian sweatered
youth is stiffnecked
watching it, others
in attitudes of
twistback & turn,
“Ya-y-y-y” —
— gesturing, talking —
watchers have arms
on knees — a ball
is bounced —
A mother works
eagerly in this
orgone ozone
day pushing a
teeny child in the
park swing — She
wont throw him
down the airshaft
— she says “It’s
chilly here” —
Figures on the
plain of the park
in various throwings,
strollings, pushings
of carriages,
scufflings, the
graceful walk of
a beautiful young girl
who doesnt care —
How can an old
man like me
devour what she has,
it is a nameless
newness insouciance
& style as ephemeral
as gain, as heartbreaking
to see as loss
— as lost to
me as smoke
or the smell of
this day —
nothing there is
left for me, for us,
but loss — yet we
choke & gain after
races & rush &
nothing’s to come
of it but tick
tack time —
A little paper on
the cement is
just as glad
as I am, just
as won —
Young girls in Levis
with little asses,
little pliant waists
& ribs wrapt in
gray jacket coats, —
green skirts —
I see them walking
off with the huge
LIR R coal bunker
as their backdrop
— But yet I
aim to write books
believing in life How?
In the heat of my
blood it all comes
out & good enough
& like birth —
It still isnt
Spring, the wind
in my neck’s
not April’s,
March’s —
insistent, beastly,
knifing — Ah
cars! Ah airplane!
SKETCH
Behind big engine 3669
in the bright day of
San Luis Obispo the
mtns. of hope rise
up, treed, green, sweet
— a rippling palm
behind the pot steams —
the young fireman of
Calif. waiting to
make the hill up to
the bleakmouth panorama
plateau of
Margarita where
stars of night are holy —
I love Calif. more &
more — if everyone loved<
br />
it as I do, dear
abandoned Jack, they’d
all be here — This
rippling land was the
Pomo’s — There’s
a cool sea wind
this noon — With
F M Hill I’m going
now to swing the hill —
to learn — long after
Neal, & hopeless — a
strange estudiante
writer-brakeman
Only when that work
which oertops my
hopeless men-among
bones will save me
up & back to enthusiastic
inside
me personal need
breast —
The Pomo word for person is animal —
So they spoke to
spiders & hawks,
& thanked the
ground they slept on —
SK People in L I R R Station
Gray skies, man glances
at wrist watch, —
not people — big
bleak blackwater windows
of an upstairs Jamaica
loft with French blinds
rolled up matted at top
& bank building marble
or smooth concrete blocks
— does God care?
do I care?
Say What you Want or
Drop Dead
You’re the boss . . .
Move silently, serpent
Thru the crisscrossing swords
of afternoon
The shining grass
Move broadly, servant
0................................................0
Sign in Sunnybrae, Calif. : -
BAY PEST CONTROL
Our Business is Simply Killing
Man is to be a
Young animal not
an Old carbon copy
NEW!
Brand New!
Daydream Sketch
Neal & I are in Mex City —
buying tea off queers — we’re
in a hotel room — they
are very weird, young
dirty — The hotel is like
the Hunter, with 2 rooms,
2 bathrooms, $10 peso
a day & we’re in MC
only a week just for
weed & a few Organo
girls — Neal’s blasting
& rolling & bringing my
attention to the weirdness
of the boys “Dig them —
dig their lives, man — The
way they live — how they
hustle on that crazy Organo
street — look at their
clothes, their eyes — hee
hee, now dig him, see
they’re talking now, wondering
how much they oughta charge
us & the little one with
the curly hair & the
airforce wings on his
T shirt who’s just like
a little kid — he’s
hot for you, Jack — he
doesnt talk business, lets
old Mozano handle
that — ” & the
mothlike dense eternal
moment of a thousand
things — caught — I get
so hi I see the history
of nation, Indians, America —
“But Mozano’s not
interested in the money
either, he’s just anxious
for La Negra to enjoy
himself — he watches”
Add Achievements: -
Met Glenway Wescott
in the Kitchen
DEATH OF GERARD
Oil cups flaring in
the misty night, the sand,
the ditch in the street
with jagged concretes
of old making little dusty
ledges for little living
strange dusts that are now
blowing in the night —
the flicker of the
flares, the saw horses,
the sand piled —
somewhere on the mysterious
horizon of the suburban
nite like scenes in Mexico
City or Montreal &
equally Strange — equally
weird — equally & O
most hauntingly like
the little man with the
mustache, a strawhat,
a salesman saying he
is dying, the golden davenport
of his house at the
top of the street —
the wind from the river
cold & inhospitable,
dim lights in houses, creak
of pines, lost Lowell
in a winter night in
1922 & I am not
yet born but the oil cups
flare & smoke in the
night — little rocks on
the pile have eyes —
everything is alive, the
earth breathes, the
stars quiver & hugen
& drool & recede & dry
up & spark — no moon.
Black. Shuffling figure
of a man in a derby
hat handsapockets
going to the latticed
house, the kellostone
pine, the great soul
of my brother in
sadness hums over the
scene — Hear the
river hushing under a
load of ice — Smell
the Smoke of the dump
— the little man in
the strawhat is going home,
newspaper underarm, he’s
left the trolley at
Aiken & Lakeview, bot
a new Rudy Valentino
box of chocolates for his
wife for tomorrow night
Friday, I am
dying he said to
me in Eternity in
Montreal years later
& that afternoon Frank
Jeff & I took the 2
girls, sisters, to the
bleak roadhouse outside
Mex City & danced
to sad lassitudinal
Latin mambos & slow
tempos & tangos —
the rain came, outside
it was a pine, a gray
window behind brown
pink Mexican drapes
of decoration — The
hand drummers dreaming —
I saw the oil cup
flares of the construction
job at the middle of
Gregoire St. in Lowell
in a night before I was
born, the moths flying
millionfold around, the
dense happiness of
timeless reality and
angels — the incoming
soaring whirlwind
cloud of thoughts, eyes,
the whole shroud, the
Blakean wind &
the voice in the wind
saying “Ti Jean va
venir au monde, Il
va savoir le mystère,
il va savoir le mystère — ”
& at the foot of the
street the house where
the woman had an
altar in a room, whole
statue, candles, flowers,
this dame instead of
a TV had in & for her
sittingroom of settees
& kewpie cushions a
bloody sadness in
plaster, loss & vim
of kicking candle flames
hundreds darting to
the rescue in air
screaming pursuit of
lost atoms —
The mist of the night,
the river beyond, the dull
street lamps, the pit of
the universe not only like
the Mass. St of
Mary
Carney in another room
of the Level Time but
(as dark, as fragrant)
like the night of
the dream of the crowd
playing leapfrog around
the racetrack with dice,
knives & interests
— in Denver, in
Shmenver, when silently
I a goof following
a cop who later turned
into a woman came
padding in my dusty
shoe of dreams, amazed
— the last gloom, the
last barn — horses? —
& in the rickety sad
immortal Now-house
the swarming vision parting
over the heads of
little children on the
bed & I’m singing
a saying — “Where’s
Neal?” — & that
little salesman sipped
his beer in Montreal,
put it down, adjusted
packages, said “Ben
j m en va chez nous”
“T’est t un vra
soulon — ”
“Ben weyon, parl
pas comme ca — On
dit pas ca — ”
“Aw — ” I was
sorry — “En anglais
en amerique — c’est
une joke — on dit — ”
And he said: “I’m
half dead anyway — I’m
goin to die soon” &
off he goes, 98 lbs.,
dark, blessed, off
into the spectral
Montreal night of
suburban streetdiggings
with oil cups, flares
illuminating sandpiles,
as the Angel bends
over, Gerard bends over,
leering sadly
in this night —
A great
unequivocal dog
Is all a wolf is
I am Mallarmé’s
grandchild
The locomotive comes swimming
thru the newsy city. In
a deep cut, houses on both
banks, full of living lights,
talk of families in eventful
kitchens. This is where I come
riding my Maine white horse.
A woman in a
Clipper berth foam-
rubber mattress being
served bkfast. in
bed over the jungles of
Ecuador —
she’s going down to Guayaquil
as an administrative
assistant to
some Aid deal — “to
help develop the economic
‘security’ etc. of