Wednesday 12 March 2014

Jack Kerouac (12/3/22 -21/10/69) - On Tears / 211th Chorus


" Ah life is a gate, a way, a path to Paradise anyway, why not live for fun  and joy and love  or some sort of a girl by a fireside, why not go to your desire and LAUGH"

Practice kindness all day to everybody and you'll realise you're already in heaven now. " 

" Live travel, adventure, bless and don't be sorry. "

- Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac was an American  author, poet and painter. Alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsburg is considered a pioneer of the Beat Generation. A creator of spontaneous Bop prosity I owe him an enormous debt.
He wrote some of the most beautiful words I've ever read, as well as taking part in adventures I can only dream about.
Born Jean-Louis Kerouac, on March 12 1922 in working class Lowell, Massachusetts, he was of French-Canadian descent. The youngest of three children, he was heartbroken when his older brother Gerard died of rheumatic fever at the age of nine.
He grew up learning English as a second language. After a spell in the Navy,(discharged for having a schizoid personality) he became a merchant seaman, then decided on the life of an itinerant wanderer, a lifestyle that gave him inspiration for his later novels.
His works were of an autobiographical nature,  reflecting a deep social disillusionment influenced by drugs, alcohol, mysticism and biting humor. I like his work a lot.
Sadly he died of internal bleeding at the young age of 47, as a consequence of long term alcohol abuse. His stature as a great writer nevertheless continues to grow.
Had he lived today would have been his 92nd birthday, so Happy birthday Jack kerouac, we will never know another quite like him.

On Tears

Tears is the break of my brow,
The money tempestuous
Sitting down in dark railyards
When to see my mother's face
Recalling from the waking vision
I wept to understand
The trap mortality
And personal blood  of earth
Which saw me in - Father, father
Why hast thou forsaken me?
Mortality & unpleasure
Roam this city-
Unhappiness my middle name
I want to be saved.
Sunk- can't be
Won't be
Never was made-
So retch!

211th Chorus

The wheel of the quivering meat
conception
Turns in the void expelling human beings,
Pigs, turtles, frogs, insects, rats, roan
Racinghorses, poxy bucolic pigtics,
Horrible unameable lice of vultures,
Murderous attacking dog-armies
Of Africa, Rhinos roaming in the
jungle,
Vast boars and huge gigantic bull
Elephant, rams, eagles, condors,
Pones and Porcupines and Pills-
All the endless conception of living
beings
Gnashing everywhere in Consciouness
Throughout the ten directions of space
Occupying all the quarters in &out,
To huge Galazy Lightyear Bowell
Illuminating the sky of one Mind-

Poor!
I wish I was free
of that slaving meat wheel
and safe in heaven dead.

"There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep rolling under the stars."
- Jack Kerouac

Kerouac interviewed in French
with English subtitles.


Kerouac reading from On the Road.


5 comments:

  1. Great Jack! Pity he drank so much so that to die at only 47. But these beat poets were full of life and energy.
    Last night on an italian TV channel there was the film HOWL about Ginsberg's poem and how he was taken to trial for obscenity in the 50's. Finally it was well expalined his homosexual relationship with Neal Cassidy that lasted for a while. Neal stopped it with a letter to Allen causing a great disappointment in him.
    Franca Panizza

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  2. Thanks again....his legacy lives on though, in his great writing and as a literary iconclast, constantly reaching a new audience. Yes unfortunately did drink too much,encouraged by his mother, and he did succumb too to catholic guilt. Guilt a four letter word that we should not consume yoo much off. Think I have seen the film you refer to, very interesting. Regards...heddwch/peace.

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  3. Guilt is a five letter word, but I still would not reccomend its consumption.

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  4. the poem :On Tears
    what is he talking about?

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  5. GREAT POEMS!!
    some are tricky to understand but very original

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