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Book of Sketches

Page 21

by Jack Kerouac


  vanishing with it, mustached long haired

  Italian youths, regular types coming in

  the bar for their morning shot of wine,

  huge bumbling bankers in expensive suits

  fishing for newspaper pennies in their

  palms (bumping into women at the bus

  stop), piped jews with packages, a

  lovely redhead with dark glasses pip pip

  pip on her heels trots to work bus, a

  waitress slopping mop water in the old old

  gutter, ravishing brunettes with tightfitting

  skirts succeeding in making you want to

  grab their rounded ass (tho they dont deign

  to look), goofely plup plup schoolgirlies

  with long boyish bobs plirping lips over

  books & memorizing lessons fidgetly, lovely

  young girls of 17 on corners who walk

  off with low-heeled sure-strides in long

  red coats to downtown Paris smokepot

  Old Napoleon wonders — leading a dog,

  an apparent East Indian, whistling, with

  books — bearded bus riders riding to

  accounting school — dark similar-lipped

  serious young lovers, boy arming girlshoulders

  — statue of Danton pointing nowhere —

  — Paris hepcat in dark glasses waiting there,

  faintly mustached — little suited boy in

  black beret, with well off father — English

  Flag waving, red and white crisscrossing on

  a blue field — (for Queen’s visit)

  PARIS PARK

  Sitting in a little park in Place Paul Painlevé

  — a curving row of beautiful rosy tulips rigid

  and swaying, fat shaggy sparrows, beautiful

  shorthaired mademoiselles (one shd. never be

  alone at night in Paris, boy or girl, but I’m

  an evil old man & world hater who will

  become the greatest writer who ever lived)

  RESTING BY A WINDOW IN THE LOUVRES

  — Seine outside, Carrousel Bridge, gray

  rain clouds, pushing overhead, blue sky

  holes, Seine ripple silver, old dark

  stone & houses, distant domes, skeletal

  Eiffel, people on sidewalks like Guardini’s

  little brushstroke people — (with black

  dot heads) — In this Vast hall where I

  sit, more’n 600 feet long, with dream

  giant canvases everywhere, the murmur

  blur of hundreds of voices — Seine waters

  restlessly greening near the bridge, trees

  blooming, tomorrow London —

  Downtown London Spring 1957 (sketch) —

  hammering of iron, banging of planks, a

  drill, rrrttt, humbuzz of traffic, morble

  of voices, peet of bird, dling of wrench

  falling on pavement (or of bolt screwer),

  truck going brruawp, squeak of brakes,

  the impersonal bangbang & beep beep

  of London still building long after

  Shakespeare & Blake lie bedded in

  stone & sheep — April in London,

  Where is Gray?

  TRAIN TO SOUTHAMPTON

  Brain trees growing out of Shakespeare’s fields

  — dreaming meadows full of lamb-dots —

  The dreary town of St. Denys, a church with a

  pasted-on concrete arch on the roof, the

  crowded row of redbrick houses, old man in

  a garden blossoming a new English Spring

  which seems to me hope-devoid. . . . .

  SOUTHHAMPTON — ridiculous little boxcars in the

  yards . . . cranes in the haze . . . cyclists . . .

  little boy sitting a wall horse style, with boots

  ... fweet of our engine —

  BACK TO AMERICA AND MEXICO SKETCH SATURDAY MEXICO 1957

  For a long time I didnt notice that

  a big dog was laying in the grass

  six feet behind me, completely

  licenseless, no collar, naked &

  glad the true dog sleeps, when

  I call him he pays no attention,

  right in the middle of the city

  park he stretches & enjoys —

  Meanwhile 2 little girls play

  with a ball (too small to throw

  it) as the mother waits patiently

  standing with shopping bag — 2

  boys kick the soccer ball &

  then quit, one falls flat on

  his back in the grass arms outspread

  to the sky while the other

  dances little steps & sings —

  An ordinary man carrying an

  empty pail — Two guys pulling

  a roll truck with one tire on

  it, talking — A little boy

  comes by playing with a

  plastic bottle tied around

  his neck with straps —

  Gangs of little children

  rush up to push the park-

  worker’s lawnmower with

  him, he grins — A dark

  Mexican kid with handfulstring

  of huge balloons blowing

  his little air tweeter —

  The dog is up, near the

  ball boys, watching nobly —

  he hops on 3 legs, his right

  front foot is broken or hurt,

  now he hops up to see a

  ragged boy’s white dog on

  rope leash & a short fight

  breaks out — The little boy

  brings his dog over to tell me

  the whole story (in Spanish)

  of his wounds & bravery —

  The ordinary man returns with

  full pail, hobbling — The mother

  & little girls, sit now on the

  old iron cannon, she reads

  as they crawl gladly — (I’m not

  interested much in sex anymore, but

  in that mother smiling patiently while

  the little girls play)

  SKETCH OF BEGGAR

  The strange Allen Ansen-looking

  but fat chubby Mexican beggar standing

  in front of Woolworth’s on Coahuila

  behaving spastically, with short haircut

  of bangs, brown suitcoat, white shirt,

  big pot belly, rocking back & forth

  jiggling his hand (left or right, as / according

  to which other he rests in his pocket)

  & he really makes it, / I just saw 3 people give him

  money in one minute, as one

  charitied him he turned away &

  scratched his brow (murmured something?)

  — He cant conceive that

  someone (as I) can be watching from

  across the street 2nd story window

  & so I see all his in-between

  actions & attitudes, a definite

  (holy) phoney, (I mean his

  life is harder than mine by far),

  when it came time for him to

  blow his nose after sneezing

  he didnt shake spastically

  but efficiently withdrew a

  napkin from his coat & blew

  his nose hard 3 times then

  put it back in his pocket

  — Even poor women give him

  coins & he places all of them

  in a funny space behind his back

  belt — His feet are tired, he

  whomps them up in a dance &

  down —

  When fat businessman glides

  by blowing smoke contemptly

  at him he hangs his head in

  contemplative shame — He

  looks up, scratches his neck,

  feels his coat pocket, sways,

  & waits beneath the light

  (as I)

  (Who’ve just finished a T-bon
e

  steak

  in Kuku’s)

  Above him I see dim

  figures in the Woolworth

  storerooms as of dance-

  class-ing & mamboing

  Being as I am now off drugs,

  after a fine meal I feel like

  I did as a kid in Lowell, an

  excited happy mind — It’s

  Saturday in Mex City & the streets

  lead to all kinds of fascinating

  lighted vistas, movies, stores, pepsi

  colas, whorehouses, nightclubs,

  children playing in brownstreet

  lamps & the sleep of the

  Fellaheen dog in some old

  grand doorway

  YES, the end to a perfect meal

  is always the grand cup of

  black coffee, here or in

  Sweets Seafood Restaurant, NY

  or in Paree, anywhere, the

  warm rich comforter (which

  prepares the appetite for chocolates

  on the homeward walk, preferably

  milk chocolate & nuts) —

  It’s the exciting hour in MCity

  or anycity, 8 on Sat nite, when

  the 5 & 10’s closing & the show

  crowds rush & newsboys shout,

  trolley bells clang, like soft

  like Lowell long ago when

  I had that swarming vision

  PENGUIN POETS

  JOHN ASHBERY

  Selected Poems

  Self-Portrait in a

  Convex Mirror

  TED BERRIGAN

  The Sonnets

  JIM CARROLL

  Fear of Dreaming:

  The Selected Poems

  Living at the Movies

  Void of Course

  ALISON HAWTHORNE

  DEMING

  Genius Loci

  CARL DENNIS

  New and Selected

  Poems 1974-2004

  Practical Gods

  Ranking the Wishes

  DIANE DI PRIMA

  Loba

  STUART DISCHELL

  Dig Safe

  STEPHEN DOBYNS

  Mystery, So Long

  Velocities:

  New and Selected

  Poems: 1966-1992

  AMY GERSTLER

  Crown of Weeds

  Ghost Girl

  Nerve Storm

  EUGENE GLORIA

  Drivers at the Short-

  Time Motel

  Hoodlum Birds

  DEBORA GREGER

  Desert Fathers,

  Uranium Daughters

  God

  Western Art

  TERRANCE HAYES

  Hip Logic

  Wind in a Box

  ROBERT HUNTER

  Sentinel and Other

  Poems

  MARY KARR

  Viper Rum

  JACK KEROUAC

  Book of Blues

  Book of Haikus

  Book of Sketches

  ANN LAUTERBACH

  Hum

  If in Time:

  Selected Poems,

  1975-2000

  On a Stair

  CORINNE LEE

  PYX

  PHYLLIS LEVIN

  Mercury

  WILLIAM LOGAN

  Macbeth in Venice

  Night Battle

  The Whispering

  Gallery

  MICHAEL MCCLURE

  Huge Dreams:

  San Francisco

  and Beat Poems

  DAVID MELTZER

  David’s Copy:

  The Selected Poems

  of David Meltzer

  CAROL MUSKE

  An Octave Above

  Thunder

  Red Trousseau

  ALICE NOTLEY

  The Descent of Alette

  Disobedience

  Mysteries of Small

  Houses

  PATTIANN ROGERS

  Generations

  STEPHANIE

  STRICKLAND

  V: WaveSon.nets/

  Losing L’una

  ANNE WALDMAN

  Kill or Cure

  Marriage: A Sentence

  Structure of the

  World Compared

  to a Bubble

  JAMES WELCH

  Riding the Earthboy

  40

  PHILIP WHALEN

  Overtime: Selected

  Poems

  ROBERT WRIGLEY

  Lives of the Animals

  Reign of Snakes

  MARK YAKICH

  Unrelated Individuals

  Forming a Group

  Waiting to Cross

  JOHN YAU

  Borrowed Love Poems

 

 

 


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