Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Ode to Jack Kerouac



By Joan d’Arc

I can’t look out your ghost,
   pulling your long hot burden nowhere
wedding your tears to the stream
long dream
    of an impossible task
too much to ask
      to dharma your soft so hard
      to meaning your Gerard
One fast move or you’re gone,
  pulling your long hot burden nowhere

I can’t look out your ghost,
 to see the skid row sod you tried to become
   Bum!
He was a bum, the Lowell bookshopkeep said,
    “man’s man, momma’s boy”
One fast move or you’re gone,
  never again to belong
      Gone—the way of the railroad earth
a phantasm from the cookie dough factory,
  pulling your long hot burden nowhere

I can’t look out your ghost,
  to find one sap belongs
    in the chain gang of god-given wrongs
Oh—godman atop an Underwood,
     Go—the way of the railroad earth
  add your tears to the stream
By its burbling it shall speak
    a phantasm clear:
    Go—
  pull your long hot burden nowhere

I can’t look out your ghost,
  couch hobo hitchhiker
    fish out of water fishing
the Pisces sees
  the cause of suffering is birth, Maw
—the first law
of deadbeat Buddha despair
    Go—Your way or the Highway,
 Rise—your Virgo Moonward,
  trailing your bebop starship skywhere


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