Book of Sketches - Jack Kerouac [49]
fatbottomed crooked
stern strange at
the foot of Manhattan
bulk
walls — the mystery
of their world going
hulls slightly slanted
& tied up at the
doorsteps of Time
& the World City
— Good God
the great ocean
one way sparkling
wine white to dry
red Spain sunrise
to come —
& all the green
harvestland t’other
way, to other San
Joses — other yards —
blam! be-krplam!
the running slack
sk-c-l-to-clank
of a cut being
rammed or braked
& I saw the yard
brakeman riding head
high in mid air
over emptyreefer
lines — The
rusty playwheels
of the railroad all
waiting for me Ah
The long blood dozes
3 POEMS OCEANS KISS
Oceans Kiss in
Land that lips
Encompass with suck
Of love Immortal
Under the moon
Of America sick
And pale blond
Ashen tuberculosis
In Sanatoriums of
Colorado
Far in the Wild
Essential Indian
DAWN
Dawn’s gray birds
Herald hoppéd Angels
Broken-backed
From fucking all night
With San Remo
Queers Intense
And Eager to learn
The latest Literary
Avidity — Came
Chirping to Envision
Horror, Teach it to
The Millionaire in
The Rail road Hair
OOPS
Poets were Glad
When Success a Smile
Sent Wine-like
Smile Warming
Their way but when
Dross Failure Rain
& Doom of Exciting
Gray Day Coal Chutes
Enveloped Again
They thought they
Had to Go to Work
Instead — a
Successful American
Let us see which of
these leads writes best
in the softly applied lap
touch originated in 1912
by Swim Ward B. Thabo —
President of the Acme
Industrial Foundation
makers of Corsets for
Model T Fords in the
Nebraska Primavery —
For by applying the light
touch in the manner which
you see here prescribed
something of the Primavery
is retained & pre
served like Pen
shades
“Sketch” Sunday Afternoon NY
The great bulk of Wall
St you’d think’d make
the lower tip of Manhattantoes
sink is rising pink as
salmon on the edge of the
blue mouth harbor waters
as you see it from the sad
Jersey Central Ferry — about
4:30 PM, long sorrow rays
hide between the cold
uncaring-of-human walls
of Wall St but there’s a
heart beating in the rock
somewhere — in the
breasts of little girls coming
on the ferry in little
ribboned hats & lacy
drawers & Go to Communion
shoes their eyes avid wild
to see the big world & learn
& to understand how their
happiness is to be secured
from the Macrocosmic Stone
of Awful Real, how at
least they can adjust to
it just as the dying fish adjusts
itself to the swerve
& swerveback of the waves
— awright so we’re all
gonna die but now is the
time to sing & see, to be
humble, sacrificed, late,
crazy, talkative, foolish,
mailteinnottond,
crawdedommeeng,
all the cross megoney’s
& followsuits to be
mardabonelated or Bug,
— they’ll be saying you
lost yr touch & you’re only
a one day old Balzac
on Sun Oct 18 1953
balls
Time, rather, to be proud,
indispensable, early,
sane, silent, serious,
not mailteinnottond at all
Death of Gerard
The original late afternoon
of Fall when I was in
a wicker basket crib
& parked on dusty skinny
wheels at that long gray
concrete garage with edible
looking blockstones creme
puffed & as if puddinged
to cook & eat & unforgettable
in the One Reality,
the sun has warmth in
it (& the single twick
of a little November
bird hid in the twiggish
branch on the other
side of the cool
redpink lateday
air) — & I’m swaddled
to the eartips in pink
Fellaheen swaddling clothes
with rose cheeks & poor
morf mouth muxed to
see the day — a drone
of 1922 Fall airplanes
in that unrecoverable bleak
& the river’s old man
in the valley bed wailing
arms out elbowed to
swell the muff of
shore aside & on, carrying
junk fenders to
the cundrom’s drowned
immaculate cove
of oil sticks under
the Boott mill door
walls where eyes of
drowned boys mix with
ink rags & sweat of
dye vat devils with aged
mothers at home dependent
& enduring like yon
sadchild in basket the
wait of the late red
afternoon to see what
Paradise will bring — the
sun fairly warm, the
air cooling to supper