Tag Archives: Jack Kerouac

Kerouac Poetry

I’ve been reading Jack Kerouac: Collected Poems, which includes the works Mexico City Blues, San Francisco Blues, The Scripture of the Golden Eternity and Book of Haikus. The Beat Generation novelist and author of On the Road inspired my writing of poetry many years ago. Kerouac, Langston Hughes and Charles Bukowski taught me that you didn’t need an MFA to write poetry, as their art sprang from life experiences. They showed me the power of raw and real voices and stories expressed in the form of free verse.

Kerouac’s collection has more than 600 pages of poetry, but I found much of it gibberish—stream-of-consciousness thoughts, rantings and Buddhist and Catholic references. Yet Kerouac also delivers heart-crushing beauty within the pages of this doorstop.

The poem “Hymn” appears in a section entitled Pomes All Sizes.

“Hymn”

And when you showed me the Brooklyn Bridge
in the morning,
Ah God,

And the people slipping on ice in the street,
twice,
twice,
two different people
came over, goin to work,
so earnest and tryful,
clutching their pitiful
morning Daily News
slip on the ice & fall
both inside 5 minutes
and I cried I cried

That’s when you taught me tears, Ah
God in the morning,
Ah Thee

And me leaning on the lamppost wiping
eyes,
eyes,
nobody’s know I’d cried
or woulda cared anyway
but O I saw my father
and my grandfather’s mother
and the long lines of chairs
and the tear-sitters and dead,
Ah me, I knew God You
had better plans than that

So whatever plan you have for me
Splitter of majesty
Make it short
brief
Make it snappy
Bring me home to the Eternal Mother
Today

At your service anyway,
(and until)

I also enjoyed many of the pieces in the section Book of Haikus. I believe Kerouac’s haikus do not follow the strict Japanese pattern of three lines of five, seven and five syllables.

Here are some autumn-related selections:

Late moon rising
—Frost
On the grass

Waiting for the leaves
to fall;—
There goes one!

First frost dropped
All leaves
Last night—leafsmoke

Crisp cold October morning
—the cats fighting
In the weeds

A yellow witch chewing
A cigarette,
Those Autumn leaves

Kerouac, Jack. Jack Kerouac: Collected Poems. New York: Library of America, 2012.

The book also served another purpose for me. Late last night I found a nail sticking out of the cheap wood paneling in the bedroom of my apartment. I was worried my son would catch himself on it, but I didn’t feel like going to the closet to grab my hammer. So I used the book to bang the nail back into place. Thanks Jack!

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Summer Reading Inspiration

Digging through some totes in my living room, I found this archival evidence of my early obsession with books.

Library reading certificate, 1976.

During America’s Bicentennial year of 1976, my mother had enrolled me in a summer reading program at Jervis Public Library in my hometown of Rome, New York. The librarian had divided the group into two teams—the Cincinnati Reds and the New York Yankees—and we competed against each other for the most books read over the course of the summer. I can’t remember which side I was on, but the librarian was prescient, because Cincinnati would meet New York in the World Series later that year, with the Reds sweeping the Yankees to win the title.

I wish I had a list of the eighteen books I had read during the summer of ’76, as I would like to revisit some of them now.

As for this summer’s reading list, I am starting off with these selections.

The Beauty of Dusk: On Vision Lost and Found, a memoir by Frank Bruni.

Frank Bruni book cover.

Jack Kerouac: Collected Poems, published by Library of America, and The Closers by Michael Connelly.

Jack Kerouac: Collected Poems, published by Library of America.

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Hotel Room Drapes

Recently I spent a weekend in a hotel room in the Albany area while my wife attended a dermaplaning class at The Aesthetic Science Institute (ASI); she works as an esthetician in Fayetteville.

On the Sunday afternoon, while my three-year-old son curled up on the bed and fell asleep, I could not turn on the lamp to read or flip on the TV because I was afraid the bright light or the noise would wake him. I’m sure parents of toddlers can relate—you don’t mess with nap time. So while I had nothing to do, I listened to the AC unit purring and studied the drapes fluttering. And I thought about the loneliness of hotel rooms—especially on a Sunday afternoon.

I thought about all of the lonely people passing solitary hours in hotel rooms scattered across the globe. If I could have listened to music, I would have selected some Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison or Hank Williams. If I could have read a book, I would have chosen a Kerouac paperback or Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley: In Search of America—or even pulled the Bible out of the drawer and thumbed through the New Testament.

But with the baby sleeping soundly nearby, I dared not move. Instead, I pulled out my phone and captured the hypnotic motion of the drapes blowing. I wanted to freeze the ephemeral moment and preserve it digitally.

Later on, when I thought about the scene, I was reminded of Edward Hopper’s Hotel Room (1931).

Hotel Room (1931) by Edward Hopper.

And just a side note: the best part of my hotel weekend was being able to get fresh diner coffee from the Denny’s nearby.

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