Book of Sketches - Jack Kerouac [55]
an October afternoon, the
young counterman unshaved
goodlooking hangs around
swaying & half smiling
pretending to work with
checks at that booth —
Tired puff eyed Greek
oldworker who spends
Sat nites in Turkish
baths of NY
voyeuring Americans &
heroboy queers of
Lower 2nd Avenue comes in
for big exciting afterwork
meal of Chicken Croquettes
with Sauce & will be
here T’Giving day for big
Turkey with works —
sad to live, quick to
eat, early to work,
slow to sleep, long to
die — Now so the
girl uncaring of old men
& pain has her fore finger
against her temple
while listening to other girl
speak & therefore in
nodding seriousness has
ravelled all her eyebone
skin up in a mask
of ark ugly furrow
destiny having no relation
to the hazel glitter,
the nutty mystery of
her sweet eyes & suckkiss
lips & long drawndown
bosh flop face discontorted
by further arrangements
of leanface on palm —
in her delicate edible
ear a dull metal thing —
her lips fully lipsticked
& curved like Cupid &
stain the coffee cup —
her eye on her girlfriend
cold, watchful, secretive,
pretending to be curious,
like she’ll make the
parody-story of this
gossip tonight in
earwigging dreams in
her fragrant thigh
sheets! whee
LATE AUTUMN afternoon,
the birds are whistle-singing zeet
feor in the dry tinder twig trees,
they ‘fleet’ & in the general
traffic (“Spr-r-e e e t”)
rush on Atlantic Ave. & the double
go ahead Diesel BOT - BOT in
the LIRR yards they wait
between calls as if, in the
activity of their own afternoon,
they had intervals too, time too
& orders from the parchesi chess
board to air conditioner machines
of the Glum Window World
make their little fluttery wait
wake, leaves falling not even
with you could hear the tick
of their little fall on the concrete
ground beneath which Indians
lie ancestral bone by skull in
tomahawk New York —
the fishtail back end of
some new car parked beyond
the Eternity Porch (like the
one in San Jose where I was
so high at gray dawn I heard
between the vibrating yowls of
Neal’s baby the great rush
of wave sounds wave on wave
shuddering & Vibrating like one
vast electric or bio electric
or cosmic gravity “struay
ill” — — zoongg —
scared me & made me hear
the moment moth sound of
Time, good or bad old Time
I’m in, and’ll write
for — So now to
“INDIANS
IN THE
RAILROAD
EARTH”)
— late afternoon Autumn in
Long Island, the leaf slants
down in the wind & hits the
ground & bounces & goes ‘chuck’
— as dry as that — the others
already fallen lie heaped in
chlorophyll green grass between
driveway concretes — the
sky has a rose tint in its
gray demeanor — the leaves/rose brown yellow
transparent/& like drunken poets emptying/
uselessness in pages
Never did try to get
on a car via standing
on a journal box except
one time on a splintery
flatcar & even then
I was as helpless as
a baby, one slack
bang pop I’d have
been as helpless as
a bread bun rolling
off to get run over
& flattened in the
middle & be toast
by Fall — — —
SAN FRANCISCO SKETCH (1954 now)
America’s truck and car kick has
made it place twin radio antennas
on the last hill of hope overlooking
the Pacific to the Orient Sea.
Clouds of sorrow pass over and
into a nameless blue opening beyond
the storms of San Francisco. Lonely
men with open collars and gray
fedoras take long drear street
walks where oil trucks turn into
gray garage doorways at 2:30
Sunday afternoon. Wash hopelessly
flaps on the roofs of Skid Row
where the great Proletariat has
come to stake his claim, or
claim his stake, one.
Everything is taking place inside
dark windows that have the
quality of inky pools inside which
white fish are swimming motionlessly
across extended arm rests, now
and then peeking out to take a
quick look at the street, flapping
grayed muslin curtains back to
shield the furtive sorrow. Rain
spats across the scene in a sudden
shower from the tormented sky
all radiant with sun holes and
Frisco Gray and Black rain
clouds