Book of Sketches - Jack Kerouac [14]
staring into the flawless
blue & thinking of
earth as a stain,
suddenly I realized
the utter absurdity of
my squatting assy
humanity too, the
infinitely empty
crock of form, like
suddenly hearing myself
sneeze in the quiet
Street night & it
sounds like somebody
else — Therefore, is
my pelvic ambition
for girl’s bone-cover
the True Me? — or
is it not, like the
sneeze & the ass,
absurd, like the
smell of the shit
of a saint
THE GREAT FALL is
rumbling in America —
in back of the Telephone
office in R.M. you
can see it in the profounder
blue of the late aft sky
as seen from among
the downtown Southern
redbricks — in the
brown tips of leaves
on trees over the garage
wall — The wholesale
hardware wall — in the
particular cold deep red
that has suddenly
come into the tobacco
warehouse roof with
its spotted loft-
windows — inside,
faintly in the
brown like Autumn tobacco
brown, the piles
of bacco baskets —
Here watching Paul’s car I
sit — poised for the
continent again, Aug. 27 ’52
And in San Jose the
Great Fall is tangled
brown among the
greens of sun valley
trees, deep shadows
of morning make the
woodfence black
against the golden
flares of sere grass —
California is always
morning, sun, & shade
— & clean —
lovely motionless green
leaves — vague
plaster rocks lost in
fields — the dazzling
white sides of houses
seen thru the tangly
glade branches —
the dry solemn ground
of California fit for
Indians to sleep on
— the cardboard
beds of hoboes along
the S.P. track up at
Milpitas — & the
clean blue deep
night at Permanente,
the dogs barking under
clear stars, the
locomotive flares
his big hot orange
fire on sleeping
houses in the glade
— sweet California —
memories of Marin
& the California night
are true & real —
& were right
And then I went
South to Mexico
And then I went North
to New York
To New York, to the
Apple, New York
(Remember, this isnt chronological)
Mexico December ’52
Plant without growth
in Vegetable bleakness
The thirst, the mournfulness
The terrible benzedrine
depression after big
night of drinking on
Organo St. with
La Negra & the
courtdancer queer
children after whore
sluffed me & I lost
brakeman’s lantern,
French dictionary,
earmuff hat, money,
pages of writing,
left piss in my
new pots & walked
off — long rides
in perfect Mexico
on bus, sad — but
at Tamazunchale
begin to feel good &
see Kingdoms & homes
& heavy syrup air
of jungle —
& at Brownsville
Missouri Pacific bus — &
then VICTORIA
“SIRONIA” —
my walk — miss’t
bus — saw Xmas
in rose brown
r.r. track
windows —
Sweet stars —
presaging months
in Winter 1953
Richmond Hill at
Ma’s house writing
gemlike
LOVE
IS
SIXTEEN
After which flew
back to Coast to
work mountains
at San Luis Obispo
puttin up & down
pops — ending I
sail out the Golden
Gate on a Japan
bound freighter that
first goes to New
Orleans where I
drink & take off
(“Worlds Champion
shipjumper,” says
Burroughs) & return
NY in summer, to
heat & Subterraneans
& Alene Love
& eventual
RAILROAD EARTH
book of Fall
Come - Christmas
O rushing
life,
restless gyre,
seas, cots,
beds, dreams,
sleeps, larks,
starlights, mists,
moons, knowns —
SKETCHES WRITTEN IN ST. LOU IS-TO-NEW YORK AIRPLANE
Winter in No. America,
the sun is falling
feebly from the
South.
Getting rooked of all
my money trying to
get home for Xmas
in time — for a
childhood chimera
blowing all my pay —
flying TWA — Lemme
see, can I find
Jay Landesman’s
saloon?
it’s going to be
a Merry Xmas
one way or the
other
Winter in No. America,
the passengers on the
right in the TWA plane
have a sea of incandescent
milk blinding
in their eyes, from
where the feeble
South American sun
comes raying, plus
the dazzling sun
ball herself, but
on the left, on eastbound
58 out of St. Louis,
on the fireman’s
side, they see the pale
blue North out the
window, also blinding,
but more seeable —
It’s like facing the
snow on the