Book of Sketches - Jack Kerouac [24]
— old tottering tall bum
in plaid shirt with
squinty look of bewilderment
— old painter
bum in white coveralls
struggles thru door —
men with hats, coats, hands
a pockets, sauntering — some
of em weatherbeaten, hard,
rough looking, Canyon City
was their most recent
home —
Glenarm poolhall —
rubber floor full of
holes, boards show — ancient
lost linoleum under —
tables have hanging baskets
like balls — Pederson’s —
old tin panel ceiling,
tan color — cue racks —
pissery in corner hid by
partition — greentop card
tables where Holmes
in bleak poolhall time
sat dealing blearfaced
& grim — “Onlooker’s
bench” pale green, high,
sand jars — Candy
counter, open phone
booth panels, juke —
parkinglot across street —
Denver Bears on
summernight radio —
click, bounce balls on
hard, laughs, “God-damn!”
— husky voices — Stomp of
feet angling around tables
— shuffle of shoes —
“Let’s go, let’s go!” —
voices of adolescents —
crash of break — “Shhhhhit”
— impatient knock of
cuestick on floor —
bop — click of ball
in basket — pocket —
Blackboard near counter
— groups of voices,
Street — Hotel DeWitt
— flash of liquor store
neons — Drake (blue)
hotel (red) down right,
cold — Bright orange
Chinese neons up left of
city center — Denver
Auto Park, lot, old redbrick
Hotel Southard one wall,
DeWitt (brownbrick white
bordered) other — over
head wire bulbs in lot —
Above poolhall Acme Hearing
Aid Co. whitewashed brick
— barber pole — (left)
Hotel Glenarm pink neon
on redbrick (right) —
Mirobar corner — (flashing) —
Counter — old bronze gilded
cash register — framed
licenses near coathanger
hooks — dark brown cabinet
— cigar counter with Tops,
White Owls, Red Dot — El
Producto — King Edward —
signs in entrance glass sides
low Coca Cola, Whistle
Oh Lord in heaven above
what a holy moment, coming
to Neal & Carolyn’s house in
the gray fog day of San
Jose, nobody in, the 9
room sadhouse, the old
Green Clunker filled with
California Autumnal leaves
like the prophetic old
birdhouse wreck of old
travels & sorrows — & finding
all alone in the house
Eternal house little John
blond & beautiful as an
Angel, taking him up,
a spot of Tokay, sit
by the radio with him
& have there on my
lap all that’s left
of my life, as if he
were my blood son.
And he looks just like
Carolyn — how sad
the ten-balled years,
how toppled the pin
of myself — what
Gray Sorrows of Autumn
for this sailing soul
— and for Cassadys,
nothing but love &
attention — bearded
doom boy Jack in Old
Jose, walked from
Easonburg Carolina —
with $5 — & came
to the Angel child that
was not afraid of the
Shroudy Stranger.
FRISCO Embarcadero Sept 8
Cold fog winds blowing
from the wreathed hills
of houses, I can see
the blazing fog shagging
over from old Potato Patch
in a cold whipped blue
— bay waters clear to
Oakland are ripple & keen
blue & cold looking — the
wind even whistles — The
majestic Mormacgulf with
her creamy white masts
& rigging in the pure blue
sits before me, a rusty
redpaint waterline on
the green Jack London
swell of old piers —
Cold wind brings hints of
all the good food in Frisco
(& maybe all the love,
& surely all the hate) —
Mormacgulf is tied
with great cables, a
ratguard broke loose near
the bowsprit canvas and
bangs like a tin pan
in the wind — Water
rushes gushing from a low
scupper — In the water
is bread, a leaf of cabbage,
a butt —
SP train at night
The local — sweetsmelling
night soots — crashby
dingdang of opposite
train — the pink neons
of Calif., the cocktail-
glass-&-mixer neon of
the ginmills — The hills
of supper lights — the
blear of fogs in from the
brown gaps — blear of
lights — Redwood City to
Atherton, clear, clean
night, with magic stars
riding the dark over the
homes of the railroad
earth — plenty time —
I must believe in the lives
of people & the history of
their reality — I must become
a historian —
observe the history of society
& write histories of the world
in wild