Book of Sketches - Jack Kerouac [13]
Sax since last prattling
like this —
NEAR SANDY CROSS N.C.
Quiet shady
sand road at
late afternoon, a
crick pool-like
& ripple reflecting
& brown with
froth spit motionless,
& exotic
underwater leaves,
& tangled jungly
banks under dry
old board bridge
— vined sides of it
— a wild claw
tree protruding from
silent greeneries —
with 12 agonies
of fingers, & one
twisted guilty body,
the weatherbeaten bark
as clean as a
woman’s good thigh,
with a climb of
vines on it — The
brown & tragic
cornfield shining in
the late sun up the
road — The clearing,
the negros, the
flu barn, the white
horse nibbling —
Coca Cola sign at
the lonely golden
little bend — a cricket
I got up this road
into my Maturity
And what will that
corn do for you?
— will it soothe you
& put you to bed
at night? Will
it call yr name
when winter blows?
Or will it just
mock the bones
of yr. skeleton,
when August
browning breaks
its Silence camp,
& blows —
Immortality just
passed over me
— in these woods
— as it cooled —
& darked — at
6 PM —
The Angel visited me &
told me to go on
THESE Mornings in A.C.L.
office will be remembered
as happy — the visionary
tics, the dreams, the delicate
sensations — must be
that way on the road
of rock & rail.
Repeat — let it come
to you, dont run after it
— It would be and is like
running after sea waves —
to embrace them up where
you stand when you catch
them — aïe —
TICS
The long dismal winter
street where I’d go to see
Grace Buchanan — & Mary —
(The prophet is without
honor in his own family.)
A “tic” is a sudden thought
that inflames & immediately
disappears —
The Indians see a Little
Cloud a Shining Traveller
in the Blue Sky
TIC
The yard with the
brothers & dogs in the
rickety back of Ozone
Park back of Aqueduct track
— Why’ is it have to be Kentucky?
The Time-type executive
— “Ahuh, — yeah —
That would be about
500 kegs a month —
Well alright if
that takes care of
yr situation thats
what they want I
expect — Yeah —
hm — We’ll try to do
that this afternoon
— anything you want
just holler — ah huh —
— bye — same to
you” — click —
TICS
O fogs of South City,
the rumble of the drag,
outside, chicory coffee,
the doom-wind-sheds
of Armour & Swift —
waybills in the Night —
the clean mystery
of California — these
sensations — Why makes
it me shudder to remember,
if it aint hanted —
The exams in University
Gym — Bill Birt, morning —
those smells, sensations,
rise to me from just
standing at requisition
shelf where fresh paint
& cool breeze blow — usually
rouses Frisco RR work —
Why? — if not hanted,
charged materially with
substances that are
locked in (and as
Proust says waiting to be
unlocked.) Ah I’m
happy — Yet it’s only
11:30 & Time Crawls —
& I’m so sick of the
burden time, everything’s
already happened, why
not happen all at
once, the charge in
one shot —
Old clerk to other old
clerk — 25 yrs. same
place — “What are you
today, Columbus?” —
as he searches lost ledger
— Sad? It’s abominable
— The names of old
lost Bigleaguers Cudworth
used to paste in his books —
1934, 1933 — Dusty Cooke,
lost names — lost suns —
as more sad than rain —
— those 2 men drinking
at the old bar on Third
& alley — old Meeks
Bar 1882 — why do I think
of them? — Pa & Charley
Morrissette spectralizing
Frisco-Lowell —
ROCKY MOUNT oldstreet
with 90 year old Buffalo
Bill housepainter spitting
brown ’bacca juice on
roof, — & younger painter
who heartbreakingly white-
washes that part near the
porch reminds me of poor
lost Lowell — And old
lady sewing little boy
bluepants on historic
porch breaks my heart —
& old black bucket &
fire in negroyard & little
gal in scrabble reminds
me Mexico & the Fella-
heen peoples I love —
for old retired couple on
that porch aint just
sittin in the sun, sit
in judgment & Western
hatred — not all
of em —
I am alone
in Eternity with my Work
For
as I sat on the
burnt out stump on
the Concord River