I did not read Kerouac
Posted: October 15th, 2011, 1:14 am
there were always words
that I did not know
how to say well
so difficult how to remember
what it was I intended to say
I can still see the revolution acid
dripping on the sweet wild air
in the summer of love
I can remember the way the sky looked
when it seemed the whole world was
tripping on LSD
I once was on a slope in Big Sur
and I could see the pacific ocean
sparkling in the distance
and it reminded me of a poem
the poem was like a forest tapestry
and in that tapestry was all the heart songs
sung by the generation of youth drawn to
the beauty of this place, to forget who they
were, so they could remember once again
one bright blue day on San Francisco street
It was like I could hear a thousand poets chanting
some great endless Beat poem to the bongos
of the cosmic bliss
I did not read Kerouac
I did not read Kerouac
until many used books later
by the time I read On The Road
he had already died of hard drink
I had made poet like to a shrink
Poetry entered my young life
through a scene in a spoof movie
of a beatnik poet reciting in the
beginning of the cheap goof ball film
I see the moment poetry came to me
I was screaming in a bottle of whiskey
as a eternal one that happens as by mistake
it came as a flaw in the flow of chance events
when religion suddenly seems full of it
when Mickey Mouse has begun it
and childhood went down a railroad track
behind my tract home near Disneyland
following a thread of black and white TV
into the Mojave looking for some UFO stone
under a giant rock with a German spy telephone
I can see a copy of some soft porn paper back
dime novel my dad hid under the couch, sweater
girl too wild in a hot rod with marijuana eyes
In the dim light of 50's flickering soda fountains
my kid mind welcomed the witch doctor song
because I could not understand a single word
as the silly lyric went, so did my view of reality
some baseball cards and a Life book of WWII
Howl just exploded somewhere in my teenage day
I don't know if I read it or it read me or was it Dylan
that alerted me to the bard of bongo breath cry
I lived in a radio of words that bled signal at night
through a crackle of memories that were not my own
I listened to the music of funny that came in bursts
of frequency behind the smiling faces of normality
I existed between static noises of USA and Coca
Cola murder mystery afternoons
Kennedy shot, a magazine opens its spooky colors
the splatters on the glossy pages of hair spray ads
the last home run hit pauses in the shattered image
Marilyn Monroe's dress flutters up over the manhole
the flying purple eater song helped to prepare us
as witch doctor song paved the way for chaos poetry
the strange code jive talk ends in bing-bang
surf was up, but the psychedelic wave came before
we knew it, and the times were changing in a flash
of a bulb of a reporter's camera, Kerouac in a jazz
shoot, saxophone voices forbidden beat wind blew
and big city sounds blow holes through flimsy years
all those idealic scenes of progress we grew up with
and a generation of mad dreamers reading in cafe
as the coffee hallucinates on spaced out walls graffiti
poets recite past century shadows or electric rain
everything is insane or it is John Coltrane beautiful
put a man on the moon but can't find the way home
America is a lost poem left on the door step of never
she is too clever in her gallivant through homogeneity
the river of healing feathers washes our ancient tears
as mental foot prints in flames of the freedom games
newspapers sweep our thoughts under the autumn rug
as leaves of vision drift down over hurricane theaters
street protests light up one by one on a map of miracle
the drugged wars fought in the name of nothing empire
vampire of news media gone corporate spiritual poverty
like a writer of the impossible hoping for an opening
through the gray areas of hypnotic probability reflecting
dimensions of peace paintings left by beings once here
I did not read Kerouac until many used books later...by
the time I read Jack K still did not how to say, how I feel
held some kind of view of poetry made by all, once and
for all, but knew too that the battle to keep verse free
would be fought on the street corners of the skitzo-mind
would be fought line by line, poem by poem written real
would be read page by page over and over in any given
situation, without hesitation, living the free wheeling life
would be read between the lines deciphered sign for sign
symbol for symbol shift of the crystal skull gear shift nob
in the holy ghost vehicle jalopy driven on roads not yet
too traveled, yet once traveled by Buddha poets before
Buddha came on the scene, like do you get my drift, man?
chanting holy holy holy near park bench where Bobby K
once sat, Harry Monroe told me stories of East Village days
I lived in City Lights books roaming the isles of free-word
later roaming the alley they later called Kerouac alley, later!
that I did not know
how to say well
so difficult how to remember
what it was I intended to say
I can still see the revolution acid
dripping on the sweet wild air
in the summer of love
I can remember the way the sky looked
when it seemed the whole world was
tripping on LSD
I once was on a slope in Big Sur
and I could see the pacific ocean
sparkling in the distance
and it reminded me of a poem
the poem was like a forest tapestry
and in that tapestry was all the heart songs
sung by the generation of youth drawn to
the beauty of this place, to forget who they
were, so they could remember once again
one bright blue day on San Francisco street
It was like I could hear a thousand poets chanting
some great endless Beat poem to the bongos
of the cosmic bliss
I did not read Kerouac
I did not read Kerouac
until many used books later
by the time I read On The Road
he had already died of hard drink
I had made poet like to a shrink
Poetry entered my young life
through a scene in a spoof movie
of a beatnik poet reciting in the
beginning of the cheap goof ball film
I see the moment poetry came to me
I was screaming in a bottle of whiskey
as a eternal one that happens as by mistake
it came as a flaw in the flow of chance events
when religion suddenly seems full of it
when Mickey Mouse has begun it
and childhood went down a railroad track
behind my tract home near Disneyland
following a thread of black and white TV
into the Mojave looking for some UFO stone
under a giant rock with a German spy telephone
I can see a copy of some soft porn paper back
dime novel my dad hid under the couch, sweater
girl too wild in a hot rod with marijuana eyes
In the dim light of 50's flickering soda fountains
my kid mind welcomed the witch doctor song
because I could not understand a single word
as the silly lyric went, so did my view of reality
some baseball cards and a Life book of WWII
Howl just exploded somewhere in my teenage day
I don't know if I read it or it read me or was it Dylan
that alerted me to the bard of bongo breath cry
I lived in a radio of words that bled signal at night
through a crackle of memories that were not my own
I listened to the music of funny that came in bursts
of frequency behind the smiling faces of normality
I existed between static noises of USA and Coca
Cola murder mystery afternoons
Kennedy shot, a magazine opens its spooky colors
the splatters on the glossy pages of hair spray ads
the last home run hit pauses in the shattered image
Marilyn Monroe's dress flutters up over the manhole
the flying purple eater song helped to prepare us
as witch doctor song paved the way for chaos poetry
the strange code jive talk ends in bing-bang
surf was up, but the psychedelic wave came before
we knew it, and the times were changing in a flash
of a bulb of a reporter's camera, Kerouac in a jazz
shoot, saxophone voices forbidden beat wind blew
and big city sounds blow holes through flimsy years
all those idealic scenes of progress we grew up with
and a generation of mad dreamers reading in cafe
as the coffee hallucinates on spaced out walls graffiti
poets recite past century shadows or electric rain
everything is insane or it is John Coltrane beautiful
put a man on the moon but can't find the way home
America is a lost poem left on the door step of never
she is too clever in her gallivant through homogeneity
the river of healing feathers washes our ancient tears
as mental foot prints in flames of the freedom games
newspapers sweep our thoughts under the autumn rug
as leaves of vision drift down over hurricane theaters
street protests light up one by one on a map of miracle
the drugged wars fought in the name of nothing empire
vampire of news media gone corporate spiritual poverty
like a writer of the impossible hoping for an opening
through the gray areas of hypnotic probability reflecting
dimensions of peace paintings left by beings once here
I did not read Kerouac until many used books later...by
the time I read Jack K still did not how to say, how I feel
held some kind of view of poetry made by all, once and
for all, but knew too that the battle to keep verse free
would be fought on the street corners of the skitzo-mind
would be fought line by line, poem by poem written real
would be read page by page over and over in any given
situation, without hesitation, living the free wheeling life
would be read between the lines deciphered sign for sign
symbol for symbol shift of the crystal skull gear shift nob
in the holy ghost vehicle jalopy driven on roads not yet
too traveled, yet once traveled by Buddha poets before
Buddha came on the scene, like do you get my drift, man?
chanting holy holy holy near park bench where Bobby K
once sat, Harry Monroe told me stories of East Village days
I lived in City Lights books roaming the isles of free-word
later roaming the alley they later called Kerouac alley, later!
