Book of Sketches - Jack Kerouac [42]
doublepainted all-lost
writing friezing around
the crumbling warehouse
says BABE HYMAN & SONS
& also DAVE KLYDAN SPE
interwritten
On the 4th floor, corner
window, a black hall
where a pane of less
blackdusty glass is missing —
the 5th floor itself is
home of a savage
poet who lies on his
back all day staring
at cobwebs above,
fingering his beard only
to — poems on the
floor covered with dust,
black dust — his shoes
a half inch deep in
dust — not dead —
yes dead — a Bartleby
so beat that it
is inconceivable to see
how he can live much
more than 5 minutes —
The bldg. is for rent —
The sun comes out,
illuminating the cobbles
but the grim edifice stays
gray & wears the
aspect of the city’s
grave — There
is no poet up there, just
rats
& a few sacks
of nibbled-into onion
urg
LONG ISLAND WAREHOUSE
In the night it’s the
great sad orangeness
of lights shining on
orange backgrounds for
red letters, like a
sideshow poster
the colors but nothing
so flimsy or entertaining —
White creamy huge stucco
warehouse of Kew Gardens
movers, the back of the
bldg. has silent stairs
with no one on them
never at night if ever
at all, iron stairs that
lead to a green door
in the whiteness of the
stucco wall just by the
orange & red writing, huge
half seen half lit
picture of a truck,
Chelsea, moving
phone numbers —
territorial towers of
a inexistent Kingdom
that once lived but
had to be embalmed
to survive the ages
& but now in our
age finds itself
misplaced as a
moving company &
no one notices
the Algerian splendor
of those walls
ramparts creamyness
& disk Mayan
designs scrollpainted
by union brush saw
hacks on board
platforms hung up
& rolled by ropes
2.15 an hour but
not knowing the
Egyptian Kingdom
splendor of their
work now in the
misty Rich Hill
night, the
Proustian Goof of
that thing
Evening, aftersupper
evening in Richmond Hill —
the cool sweet sky is full
of fine little white puffs
separated angelically
in regular
— over the tree the
pink hint sensation white
is calm, the tree quivers
at the leaf — sweet
is the coolness, even the
filmy wire on my TV antenna,
the new transparent aerial
curve is cool, white, blue —
but in the sound & the
sensation the crickets
muscle whistle, others
repeat the idiot creek
creek from denser yards,
cats lap & lick,
bugs hover, night breathes
sweet soft vastness
into heaven —
the motionless green
grass is like iron, chlorophyll,
Chinese, densely
personalized, rugged, almost
pockmarked, rich, as
if chewed — hanging
pajamas & rugs on
lines move majestic
& slow in a cross
movement, now they
hustle a little up —
flowers blaze in their
own radium world —
in night they aureate
to no human eyes
unseen magical darts
of prismatic Violet
light, for mosquitos
to whir in front of —
Huge purple transparent
phosphorescent night
fall now pinks the
white page of life,
faces lost in hate
& personal pitbottom
dislikes, hasseled heavy
footed too-much-with
himself man fawdling
in yards of pride,
whining at the dogs
of time, overhead
groans the airplane
of his far reached
folly —
and so the crickets
creek, cree, cree —
eaves darken & get
inky gainst whitened
dusk — the pale
dawn dusk clouds
move not but silent
in a mass advance
somewhere slowly —
it was in evenings like
this I’d lie in my skin
& jeans in California
waiting for the Apocalypse
& for Armageddon,
ready, head on lamp,
feet in big shoes,
pants tight, wallet
hanky knife tight,
no money no home
no need but a can
of beans & the
responsibility of engines
on the sticky steel
rail — As now the
grape of that
California Wine spread
in the West, shooting
phosphor glory over
the Come of the
World — The
green weeds like
with glaze on them
tough skin as now did
communicate with
me a vegetative
friendliness
Mardou’s — the gray light
of Paradise Alley falls
down the draining gray stained
wall with old gray paint
churred windows, outside’s
the scream of a little
girl — The