well, to keep a long story short, i was at the Pike Place Market one nice day in April, and i passed by this little bookshop with a display on Jack Kerouac in the window. now, i had been wondering who exactly Kerouac was - all i knew was that he was an American, one of the original "Beat" or "Beatnik" poets of the 1950s, and that he sometimes put huge rolls of paper in his typewriter and just let it all come out (a technique which i sometimes modify to work for my pen and paper situation). So i picked up a small volume of poetry by the man, titled "Pomes All Sizes" (and no, that's not a typo; it really is called "Pomes") and published posthumously. i've been browsing through it and reading it ever since. much of his work really speaks a language that gets to me, and some of that, i'm sharing with you right here.
Excerpts from Jack Kerouac's "Pomes All Sizes"
Haiku
Came down from my
ivory tower
And found no world
~*~
Berkeley Song In F Major
And I seen the secret of the ant
Which is:
To them sand is boulders
And the boulders are pure
empty
gold
Essence aint the ants
Essence aint Jack Whatyrcallit
Essence
Essence isn't a butter bee
on a white petal
dreaming of far
pure lands learned
long ago
Essence
Essence, it means,
Essence is the ants
Is the Jack W i t t t
Is the essence
Is the long bee
I told about
Is is
Is
~*~
Poems of the Buddhas of Old
So listen to me
And I'll try to tell all
As I heard it long ago
In the Pure Land Hall.
Life is like a dream,
You only think it's real
Cause you're born a sucker
For that kind of deal;
But if the Truth was known
You ain't here nohow
And neither am I
Nor that cow and sow
...
Don't thank me for telling
What was told me
This is the Wheel I'm turning,
This is the reason I be.
Mind is the maker
For no reason at all
Of all this creation
Created to fall.
~*~
[Enlightenments]
When you become enlightened
you will know that you've
been enlightened all along
~*~
Various Little Pomes
I know this to be
an empty state,
that is to say,
a state of form
My dream of a
horrible city is
individual discrimination
--the actual
city is universal
mind
*
I stop dreaming
And the ripples
Disappear from
universal mind's
actual face
and what's left
is I'm not here
any more
...
The reality is
nothingness--
We think
we strive
~*~
Angel Mine
Angel mine be you fine
Angel divine
Angel milk what's your ilk
Angel bilk
Angel cash Angel Smash
Angel hash
~*~
The Moon
Deep as the ocean, high as the moon,
Low as the lowliest river lagoon
Fish in the Tar and pull in the Spar
...
Gaze at the moon marking
the face--
In some cases
The moon is you
In any case
The moon
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