Book of Sketches - Jack Kerouac [29]
to the children only —
Fellaheen children are in
the background silent,
watchful, & awed —
American kids are loud,
nasty, forward, disagreeable
at 4, & bored at 16
The horrible bitches have
no regard for man
anyway, just their
itchy old twats & what’s
come out of it — It
would never occur to
American women &
American Old Woman
Society that a 80
year old man’s life
is more valuable than
an infant’s life because
it has acquired its
value — They think
in terms of “My Child”
with an almost-mystical
sense of the Future
as abstract as everything
else Faustian —
A jet plane is an
abstraction because it
serves absolutely no
purpose to body or
soul — just flies —
All their other abstractions
— Communism,
Freedom, etc. — are
abstractions within the
Abstract Structure of the Machine —
Machines can’t
run without a theoretical
basis.
The theoretical of
Nature is still & will
always be “unknown”
because it is not
theoretical, it is —
Ah now the croaking
birds of California Afternoon,
the tweeties too,
the neigh of a horse,
the breeze, the rustle
of a paper bag stuck
against a bush — God
will come again in all
his radiance & illuminate
our souls with understanding
& pity, & Jesus will
descend into our minds
with his Meek & Sorrowful
Look & pierce us with
the pang & arrow of
our condition on the
plain of life — & bless
us with a soft
shroud — I want
to sit in the
desert contemplating the
earth & the clouds &
the insects & suddenly
the poor Fellaheen
simplicity-souls there
with me — I want to
be among them in the
night, soft lights across
the sand road, distant
dogs of the Fellaheen Moon
— the maguey rows —
the holy marijuana to
enliven my Vision when
needed — the sweet
wine — to soften my
cark & belly when needed
— the tender cunt of
my Indian Love — my
Fellaheen Wife — &
holy sleep among the Patriarchs
All I want to do is
love —
God will come into
me like a golden
light & make areas
of washing gold above
my eyes, & penetrate
my sleep with His Balm
— Jesus, his Son, is in
my Heart constantly.
My brother Gerard
was like Jesus. My
father I loved like
God. My mother
is sweet & golden-
hearted & never meant
harm to bird, insect
or person in the depths
of her simple heart, —
My sister is dead to God
now, because she puts
marriage to a tyrannical
but simple-hearted
man before her knowledges
of God & the soul that
she learned once from
her father, brother (&
mother perhaps) & Church —
She & I knelt in
damp pews of poor Good
Friday —
I am working for the
railroad to keep my
stomach in food &
drink but I want to
throw myself on the
ground & die for God
if it wasnt so awful
TO DIE & leave the joys
of food & drink & cunt,
& grieving relatives.
To learn the life
of sainthood is harder
than 8 years of
Medical or Law School
— I will come to it
gradually, to celibacy
& some fasting (by celibacy
I mean of course simplicity
of living, for instance no
gum chewing & such
trivial habits that attach
to me still from the
Machine of Anti Christ)
— come gradually to growing
my own food, to Patriarchy
& Silence in the Earth
& Ecstasy of Alyosha
SKETCHES NO. 3
Cowboys of the Wild
American romantic West
& the Horsey Set are
hungup on horses’ asses —
Cows around an oil well pump
say — “Leave the oil in
our earth.” — Later ages
will wonder why Faustian
man extracted all kinds
of stuff from the earth,
dirt, mud, oil — Silly
pumps ass balling up &
down the ground for
nothing — oil for horror —
( — Dostoevsky’s moon — )
Aping nature is not art,
only a gospel will do —
Tea — backtracking thru
the universe —
Not only a derangement
of the senses but of
personal evaluations, moral
evaluations of yourself
— tea is suicidal —
I vant to be alone —
since that repudiation of
a human wish Americans
have become adjusted to
their machines —
Baby crying in gray morning
— moments meshing with
every note —
Pray to God for the
great reality (on
yr. knees in Italian
railyards