Book of Sketches

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