by Jack Kerouac
Grange toutes les villes
les jilles
Mange toutes les filles
19TH CHORUS
The diamond that cuts through
To the other view
That I painted all white for you
I edited your rough stone,
Produced a diamond show,
Elephantine was the mine
Eglantine adamant and mad
And madly adamantine
My Allah you mine,
The diamond of Dipankar
The prime ripe wreak havoc
Buddha pra-teeth torn
Mouth Ya-Hoi-Ya-Hai
Pastumintapaling porpitoi
Turnpot of biled pata taters
Smater Gater the Mater
O’Shay, rife was the weather
Was singin was gay,
Rape were the weathers
In heaven’s O Shay
20TH CHORUS
Old buddy aint you gonna stay by me?
Didnt we say I’d die by a lonesome tree
And you come and dont cut me down
But I’m lying as I be
Under a deathsome tree
Under a headache cross
Under a powerful boss
Under a hoss
(my kingdom for a hoss
a hoss
fork a hoss and head
for ole Mexico)
Joe, aint you my buddy thee?
And stay by me, when I fall & die
In the apricot field
And you, blue moon, what you doon
Shining in the sky
With a glass of port wine
In your eye
—Ladies, let fall your drapes
and we’ll have an evening
of interesting rapes
inneresting rapes
21ST CHORUS
Let fall the interesting fall
And I lie and be as I be
He stayed up in my case
for quite awhile
Tremendous pace—He was
A petty thief or he’d sell junk
One or the other
I did my best to keep him from
selling junk
French fag from Montreal
Hid the capsules up his ass
And took em out in a restaurant
On Broadway and Ninety Sixth
And I went to Eighty Sixth
Those girls hit up on me
“Man is here!”
And I bought four more caps
And the fag went home with a girl
What a beautiful shape
that woman had
22ND CHORUS
Ha well dear and Ah Men
The wee girl that was comin again
She was for the books
The Ursula plea
That I could not take
O you better baike
O you better bake
A better cake than this
O you better Miss
Yes you better miss
When the thing never will kwiss
O sweetheart and okay
Here’s hopin we’ll all be away
It was great fun
But it was just one a
those tings
23RD CHORUS
Dom dum dom domry
Dom—dom—hahem—
Sum—(creeeeee!)—Hnf—
Shh—Hnf—Shh—Haf
Shhh—Shhh—Hiffff—
—Ma—
Snffff—(bing bring, se ting)
—“Yo conee na nache”—
D ding—d ding—d-ding—
Cramp!—O ya ta dee
—ker blum—kheum—
Hnffff—drrrrrrrr—drosh—
Pepock—Sniffle—t bda—
Want a piece a bread
No
Jack? Hnff—Ta ra ta ra fuee
—Te wa ta ra teur—
Grrr—he na pa powa shetaw—
Tck tick tick Today is Sunday
24TH CHORUS
Eternally the lightning runs
Through form after form formless
In positive and negative repose
It makes no difference that your uncle
Was black with sufferance & bile,
The whild childscriming skies will
Always be the muchacho same
Much words been written about it
The message from infinite
That will be was brought to us
Is one
But because it has no name
We can only call it Bibit
“It was Liebernaut who had
the dream of uncovering Carthage”
The snow in the sea mountains
25TH CHORUS
In Egypt under rosebushes
Fifi’s fruits & sweets
My Egyptian connection’s
Gonna be late, the conductor
Wouldnt take my change
The Egyptian conductor
Wouldnt nod
Sandalwood and piss and pulque
Burning in every door,
Mighty Marabuda River
Flows along
Sampans and river thieves
And woodsplitters and blind
Thieves’ Markets & imbeciles
“See Milan and see the world”
Heppatity the twat kid
Hatted by the racetrack
Horses’ moon barns
spun on a gibbee
For lying alone
26TH CHORUS
My poems were stolen
by Fellaheen Thieves
In the city of the midnight
The title was “Fellaheen Blues”
And justice is done to Rome
I’ll never see them again
Learn what sweet development
I’d harbored up to meditate
All’s left now
is these hateful
New Fallaheen Blues
which mean nothing
and I hate them
In the other book I cried
Ah-da Ah-da
the parturient spinsters
that prate i the dining hill
Are having blue venison
To goose their old hyms
Og
27TH CHORUS
But I’ll tell you—electricity
Runs through all these forms
And we call it electricity
And notice the forms
But what’s hoppen in nothin
Is wha hoppen in nothin
See?
The butchers a de Bronx
Ourter now dat
—the late night tweed diners
Italian restaurants on Bleecker
that sing in the staring blue street
with cigarettes of legs
Ourter know dat
The wild outflow wow open
O gate of golden honey
Hopin hill up above
And below & within
The kin, aye, my,
What a roseate balloon
For lovers of kin
28TH CHORUS
Part of the morning stars
The moon and the mail
The ravenous X, the raving ache,
—the moon Sittle La
Pottle, teh, teh, teh,—
The tatata of
thusness
Twatting everywhere—
The poets in owlish old rooms
who write bent over words
know that words were invented
Because nothing was nothing
In use of words, use words,
the X and the blank
And the Emperor’s white page
And the last of the Bulls
Before spring operates
Are all lotsa nothin
which we got anyway
So we’ll deal in the night
in the market of words
29TH CHORUS
And he sits embrowned
in a brown chest
Before the palish priests
And he points delicately
at the sky
With palm and forefinger
And’s got a halo
of gate black
And’s got a hawknosed
watcher who loves to hate
But has learned to meditate
It do no good to hate
So watches, roseate laurel
on head
In back of Prince Avolokitesvar
Who moos with snow hand
And laces with pearls
the sea’s majesty
30TH CHORUS
The little bug thrasheth
on the table
Hungry to burn in the candle
of flames
Jerks at the gate-bottoms
of wax cold hide
Albions and Albans
to his little sight
Leaps to be browned
in the roast rite
Soars & tries to reach
dizzy height
Falls in the temples
and quivers & slaps
Playin like a schoolboy
in the valleys
Of silver & ivory hate
ELEVEN VERSES OF GARVER
31ST CHORUS
I
I had a slouch hat too one time
The old slouch hat
I just keep walkin around
And he keeps walkin around with me
Around and round that necktie
counter we went
When it rained I wore my old
slouch hat
It was a good felt that
I had to carry through many
rainy day, late fall
and the early spring
Perhaps it was a rainy day
And the house dick mighta saw
My hat
Each tie on that ring
Worth six bucks, Brooks Brothers,
Sixty bucks wortha ties
Slacks with peculiarities
I couldnt even find a pair of slacks
I thought it was suitable to wear
32ND CHORUS
II
Wrapped one pair around me
And pinned it with a safety pin
And pulled up my trousers and
Went out looked at myself in the mirror
‘O no, those wont do’
And I walked out
Wrap the slacks around my waist
Took two other pair
went to the mirror
threw them at the salesman
‘No those wont do—good
afternoon’ and walked out
The slouch hat I got at Harvard
Club, Yale Club, Princeton Club
one or the other
Dartmouth Club
University Club
Always barred the Yatch Club
because it was a little over
my kin
33RD CHORUS
III
The doorman knew that only
Mr Astor Mr Vanderbilt
Mr Whitney belonged
He couldnt say ‘Good morning
Mister Astor’ because
he knew I wasnt Mister
Astor
I always figured a way to heel
into those other clubs
Not only a member of Who’s
Who but a Who’s Who
also have to be a member
of Who’s Who in New York
in the special clique of Who’s
Hoo—slouch hat!
I get in the Athletic Club
many time
34TH CHORUS
IV
And I’d go up in the Billiard Room
And I would wander back around
The room, hands in back,
And every coat rack I backed
Up against feel for the wallet
One day I walked
Outa there with ten wallets
Bellboy lookin me over
Pretty soon a very dignified looking
gentleman came up and buzzed
the bell boy
He says “Who?” and I says
“Man told me his name, while
We’re drinkin at the bar,
And told me to meet him
In the billiard-room
of the Athletic Club
I dont see him—so I best I
better go”
35TH CHORUS
V
“Tell me about the old slouch
hat”
One of my numerous trips
to one of the numerous clubs
in New York City
The hat finally was left
in the hotel
which I had to leave
rather hurriedly one night
never to return
so the hat was given
to the castoffs of the hotel
which they collect
and rummage sells
May now be worn by one
Of the members of Skid Row
New York City—the Bowery
“I seen that hat
by moonlight”
36TH CHORUS
VI
I had a pointed mustache
and I mean pointed
half inch from here
Double breasted vest
and a Derby hat
and striped trousers
English shoes, black,
very pointed, they were
Hannah Shoes
People on Broadway’d turn
and look at me
The worst is yet to come
I had a pince nez
with a long black ribbon
to my buttonhole
And I wore a carnation
white or red
Boy did I look like somethin
37TH CHORUS
VII
A year later I got caught
I was dressed differently
and everything
But boy that mustache
and that pince nez
was really out of this world
I used that outfit six months
I finally had to pack it in
because it was too well-worn
Pince nez was in a coat
I stole
Mustache I grew in the
sanitarium
While taking one of my
numerous drug cures
My mother’d come to see me
She says “Oh No!
Cut it off!”
“I’m just havin a little fun, mother”
38TH CHORUS
V
III
Took it on the lam
And went to Canada
late at night I’m fulla
morphine and I come down
fulla goofballs too
This guy had ventriloquist doll
And he gave out this Texas Guinan
Routine “Hello Sucker, we
like your money as well
as anybody else’s—s matter
of fact the bigger your roll
the more we take ya”
He used to get everybody
interested with the doll
and cutout silhouettes
put stripes in your tie
Wound up in his room
gave him a shot of morphine
39TH CHORUS
IX
Out on the highway I thumbed a ride
into Buffalo and I put the bum
on the guy for something to eat
—’Eat in my drugstore’—
So we went in the back
And he had corn on the cob
And boiled potatos, ‘Say fellow
I always hear people talk
about morphine, what’s it look
like?’—he shows me—he
had a key a cabinet and
he had bottles of hundreds
quartergrains halfgrains
pantapon delauddit everything
and soon as he tended
the customers I emptied the
bottles—got outa there pretty
quick, bought a safety pin
in Buffalo and took a shot
in the toilet
40TH CHORUS
X
Come out and saw a fellow
shaving, his coat hanging there,
hung my own coat and gave
his coat a brush of my hand,
felt his wallet, washed my hands,
and went out and took off
with the wallet
So I started out on a shoplifting
campaign in Buffalo
wasnt very experienced at it
Started out with a topcoat
and I sold it in a taxicab stand
Next day I decided to get myself
some suits
and I went up
I had a suitbox
I walked about & put the suitbox
in one of the dressingrooms
