On Reading Kerouac
Again the gnawing wolf is at the door and sleep is screaming through the night. An apple core lies wasted in the ash. Life burnt. Quick puffs of nose tingling smoke. It's 11:45 and all is hell. The silent bellman tolls. The darkness of the past searches for tomorrow. We dare not leave the cave to venture into the next to be. "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps at a petty pace . . . " Ay, bard of the literary ages, Voice of the human soul So well you speak the words I seek. Life is barren without change. Hope is a misty eyed temptress. Our moods swell, ebb and tide like a moon mad ocean. Together, apart, as one we Are each alone in his cell. A nucleus that lives on its own juices, formed by seepage from adjoining cells touching near far Our mouths, open. Voices cry the wind song of the evening and ears turn, listen, emit no pity. Footsteps fade to single raindrops rattle in a rusty drain. Our eyes are closed Now open wide. View existence as a nothing that the sense indentifies just to please the mind. Let's sit and watch nature mature its way through another's body, being. And, in the process, fine the knowledge of the world be a king. Find the secrets to the keys of wisdom. Sit atop a mountain and scream with the gods of man and beast. If man and beast have the same gods. But, I must not, we must not, can not, tarry. "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" are creeping on anything but cat's feet, trampling. The pay check just won't blanket all the bills.