Book of Sketches - Jack Kerouac [20]
from Hope Indiana with
particularly irrelevant
old bum carry me
80 mph. to Denver!
— “Believe in helping
out a feller — try to
do God’s will as best
I can — ” Never seen
a rattlesnake or
a mirage till this
ride! — Zoom —
Arrive Denever
ZAZA (Barbershop in Denver)
Zaza’s — blue squares
painted above long
vertical panes, on
glass — says “Baths”
& “1821” — Barber
Shop — little tiny
bulb light over door
on protruding bar, bent —
beat up doorway, gray
paint below the mad
cerulean wash blue
— in window burlesk
ad, whitewashed flowerpot
of tub with soil & crazy
redblossomed weeds —
smaller pots, weeds —
no decoration, just bare
chip-painted weathered
old planks in window-
case, a can with soil
& greentip, — a milk
bottle, empty — a Wildroot
smileteeth ad card, a
sad tablecloth over a
rail — an upsidedown
ancient piece of an ad
card — “Barber Shop”
is flaked half off —
Gaga’s — other
window has ad cards,
same — Inside is wooden
drawers, white — chairs
white & black, old —
cash register — barber
coat over chair — (closed)
— sink, bench — wood
slat wall — calendar
— next to beat
Windsor shoe shop, used
shoes ranged in window
Late afternoon at the New
England Sunday lakes of
my infancy —
The Joe Martin truckdrivers
of the crosscountry Denver
night — old lunchcarts —
Early Autumn in Kansas —
I ate a big breakfast of
sausages, eggs, pancakes,
toast & 2 cups coffee —
hungry on the road — farmers
in the Sunday morning
cafe, the bright sun, the
clarity of a rickety
Kansas town alley outside
— heartbreaking
reminders of Neal Cassady
— “The Energies of
Cody Pomeray”!
Alley: telephone poles,
wires, Firestone tire sign
(flamepink & blue), old
graywood garage door,
redbrick chimney lashed
to a house with bar,
aluminum warehouse, old
streetlamp overhanging —
Norton, Kans. —
Old shacks! — O
America! — What was
it like in Lincoln’s time!
— Where are all the
railroad men of the
19th Century! They’ve
all slanted into the
ground —
The heavy-headed
wheat —
ACROSS KANSAS
Golden fields flaming
with the sunflower —
Thirst-provoking-while-
chewing-gum mirages across
the dry plowed fields —
but a dust-raising tractor
in the middle of a cool
sweet lake is a blatant
lie — “Many poor devils
died trying to reach one of
them” — (driver from Hope)
The immense dry farming
spaces — Maj estical
white silo at Bird City
Kans. — Distant
drunk phone poles —
A thirsty man looks
for mirages!
Colorado — old barn,
red — pile of dry boards,
barrels, tires, cartons —
dry wind, dry locust in
brown grass — old Model
T wreck truck — Wind
sings sadly in its dash-
board — & thru wood
boards of floor — just wood
slats for roof — incredible
erect, skeletal — what
deader than old car?
— haunted by old
dead-now usages —
rusty skinny clutch handle —
no cap — drywood spokes —
old ferruginous mudguards
I write on have tinny
sad ring & sing while
I write — pile of tarred
poles — Cows grazing
in the Plains haze —
sweet long breeze —
horse in the flat —
prairie crickets tipping
— hay mtn. with
old dead wagon 2
wheel — old dead
skeleton plows — wreckages
of old covered wagons are
hinted at in the scattered
junk of backfield — a
backyard to a barn
& station that faces
infinity — tremendous
open dry white sand
square to city, town —
west of Idalia —
The Colorado Plains
horse neighing in immensity —
Ah Neal — the shaggy
whiteface cows are
arranged in stooped
dejected feed, necks
bent, upon the earth
that has a several
mood under several
skies & openings — Ah
the sad dry Land ground
that’s open between
grasses, whip’t bald
by the endless Winds —
the clouds are bunched
up on the Divide of
the horizon, are shining
upon thy city — the
little fences are lonely —
The grassy soft face
of earth has pocks
of canyons, arroyos,
has moles of sage,
has decoration of
aluminum wheat barns,
the one skinny
revolving windmill in
the Vast, — lavender
bodies of the distance
where earth sighs to
round — the