Book of Sketches

by Jack Kerouac

technicalities red tape

  & by laws, is an

  incredibly useless clutter

  of substitutes for

  sex & real life —

  Anyone interested in

  the million details &

  sensations of a Culture

  is interested in clutter &

  is now (sic) longer in contact

  with the Life Flow underneath

  this junk & therefore

  Neurotic &

  Dead in Life —

  Reich’s Orgone Box

  doesnt compare to a screw

  in the noonday sun — nor

  Bogomolets’ serum

  to sexual & therefore

  spiritual (joie de vivre)

  longevity —

  Needs from the

  earth bleeding — pulque,

  cocaine, marijuana,

  peotl, gangee, herbs,

  woods, vegetables, acorns,

  greens, & the rabbit

  Remember that everything

  is alive — the Spider,

  the Rattlesnake, the Tree

  Wish no harm &

  none will come yr way

  & tell it to the

  world alive,

  the Animal, the People

  I shall become a

  goatherd — goat

  milk, goat butter, &

  tortillas & beans

  with goat cheese

  And yet most of these observations

  arise from the fact I

  cant get a woman anyhow —

  too “bashful,” too “scowling” —

  Tho it would be hard

  to surpass the profound

  nostalgia of the smoke

  of an American cigar,

  you would have to surpass

  it. — To find the

  Fellaheen Reality

  means to find a

  primitive country life

  with no morals —

  Country life with

  morals, as in North

  Carolina, is the most

  destructive life on

  earth — City life with

  morals offers a few

  diversions more, nothing more.

  Yet whenever I get the

  most rigid & philosophising

  & dualizing as now,

  is when I most weakly

  feel like reacting to

  the allurements of

  what I seek to cast

  out —

  I dont know when

  this eternal dual

  circle will end —

  In 1949 it was

  Homestead vs. Decadence

  1951

  Mexico City vs. Work in U.S.

  1953

  Fellaheen vs. America

  Be decadent, work in U S &

  Have a Fellaheen Homestead too

  All is I want

  Love when I want it

  Rest when I want it

  Food when I want it

  Drink when I want it

  Drugs when I want it

  The rest is bullshit

  I am now going out

  to meditate in the

  grass of San Luis Creek

  & talk to hoboes &

  get some sun & worry

  where my soul is going

  & what to do & why

  as ever

  & ever

  shit

  So that writing will finally

  in me end up to be the

  working out of the burden

  of my education

  for personal Surrealistic

  self-therapeutic education-

  burden time-fillers in

  Agrarian & Fellaheen Peace

  No radio TV education or

  papers — a sombrero, a

  mujer, goats, weed & guitars

  I blame God for

  making life so

  boring —

  Drink is good for

  love — good for

  music — let it

  be good for

  writing —

  This drinking is my

  alternative to suicide,

  & all that’s left

  And marijuana

  the holy weed

  It isnt anybody’s fault

  that I am bored —

  it’s the condition of

  time — the burden

  of putting up & filling

  in with tick tack

  time in dull dull day

  — How humorous it

  is that I am bored,

  that it’s no one’s

  fault, that time

  is a drag — that I

  would rather commit

  suicide than go on

  being bored —

  Men are new creatures

  not built for this old

  earth — the lizard yes

  The lizard lost all

  his children long before

  men began being bored

  in this Eden of Harshness

  Alcohol, weed, peotl —

  bring em on — &

  bring on bodies —

  Why does the Indian

  drink?

  Because he never knew

  how to make himself

  drunk with weeds &

  brews — only stoned

  The carefully exposed

  sipper’s bottle is

  suddenly rapidly sinking

  Every year be writing 3

  books simultaneously

  — a morning sober book

  — an afternoon high book

  (the greatest)

  — a night drunk book

  hee hee hee!

  & girl

  & friends

  & universal tippling

  forgiveness

  WRITE IN SMALL PRINT WHEN YR. DRUNK

  The charm of the original drunk —

  Vermont — the mtns. of Manchester

  & we all got drunk — Kids — tore

  up trees — the earth got drunk with

  us as I remember — weaving, swaying —

  THERE WERE OUTCRIES***NASCENCES

  OF LOVE***I FELL HEADFIRST

  out of the car to greet the

  ladies — GJ protected me

  & goofed with me in the romantic

  American starlit nite of

  youth — G.J. — still great

  is G.J. — huge-in-eternity GJ —

  Goodbye, San Luis Obispo

  July 1953

  One of those downtown

  Manhattan cobble corners

  on a gray afternoon

  given so much more gloom

  to its already gloomy

  dimness — the big

  busy trucks of commerce

  & even occasional horse

  teams clattering & booming

  by — The corner where

  the old 1860 redbrick

  now weatherbrick bldg

  sags, with Mexican like

  sagging black sad broken

  sidewalk roof suspended

  by bars attached to the

  wallfront — it’s like

  a vision of the old Buenos

  Aires waterfront & beater

  still & like the bleak

  merceds of So America

  but the heart of modern

  sophisticated Rome-New

  York — A rain of

  plips & day-mosquitos

  falls across the black

  dank gloom of the

  corner — profoundly hidden

  within is an almost

  unnamable man on

  a crate bent & thought-

  ful in the day dark

  over his order book &

  by mountains of

  cabbage crates — The

  gray sky above has a

  hurting luminosity to the

  eye & also rains with

  tiny nameless annoying
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  flips & orgones —

  life dusts of Time —

  beyond is the vast

  arcadium green Erie

  pier, a piece of it,

  with you sense the

  scummy river beyond —

  The West Side hiway,

  gray, riveted, steel,

  with automobiles crisscrossing

  in the narrow scene

  to destinations like

  bright silver ribbons

  North & South in the

  city & no regard, no

  time for the dark sad

  little corner with its white

  oneway arrow, blue St.

  Sign (Washington & Murray)

  leany lamppost, litter

  of gutter, curb as if

  pressed down by years

  of trucks backing up —

  The lone blue pigeon

  trucking along, the

  squad copcar stopping

  momentarily to think —

  a scene wherein in

  some darkfog midnight

  2 seamen stagger, or

  an anonymous clerk

  in rumpled July summer-

  shirt hurries meek

  with Daily News —

  or by gray hot noon

  of dogday August some

  small merchant in

  brown coat, whitehaired,

  clutching a box underarm

  slowly walks — on

  late October afternoon

  a rusted & forgotten spot

  in the great joysplash

  of Manhattan with

  its glittering band

  of rivers, ships exuding

  booms, shrouds —

  smoke, of railroads,

  trucks, boom of time

  Closer up you see the

  actual pockmarked grime

  of this sad Manhattan

  scene, an old hydrant

  with 2 black iron stanchions

  beside it as if

  obsolete ruins of old

  water or horsetrough

  equipments of 1870

  when where you now see

  Erie Pier’s green parthenonish

  front was the jibbooms

  of great sailing vessels,

  the boom of wagon wheels

  & barrels — Overwritten

  doublepainted all-lost

  writing friezing around

  the crumbling warehouse

  says BABE HYMAN & SONS

  & also DAVE KLYDAN SPE

  interwritten

  On the 4th floor, corner

  window, a black hall

  where a pane of less

  blackdusty glass is missing —

  the 5th floor itself is

  home of a savage

  poet who lies on his

  back all day staring

  at cobwebs above,

  fingering his beard only

  to — poems on the

  floor covered with dust,

  black dust — his shoes

  a half inch deep in

  dust — not dead —

  yes dead — a Bartleby

  so beat that it

  is inconceivable to see

  how he can live much

  more than 5 minutes —

  The bldg. is for rent —

  The sun comes out,

  illuminating the cobbles

  but the grim edifice stays

  gray & wears the

  aspect of the city’s

  grave — There

  is no poet up there, just

  rats

  & a few sacks

  of nibbled-into onion

  urg

  LONG ISLAND WAREHOUSE

  In the night it’s the

  great sad orangeness

  of lights shining on

  orange backgrounds for

  red letters, like a

  sideshow poster

  the colors but nothing

  so flimsy or entertaining —

  White creamy huge stucco

  warehouse of Kew Gardens

  movers, the back of the

  bldg. has silent stairs

  with no one on them

  never at night if ever

  at all, iron stairs that

  lead to a green door

  in the whiteness of the

  stucco wall just by the

  orange & red writing, huge

  half seen half lit

  picture of a truck,

  Chelsea, moving

  phone numbers —

  territorial towers of

  a inexistent Kingdom

  that once lived but

  had to be embalmed

  to survive the ages

  & but now in our

  age finds itself

  misplaced as a

  moving company &

  no one notices

  the Algerian splendor

  of those walls

  ramparts creamyness

  & disk Mayan

  designs scrollpainted

  by union brush saw

  hacks on board

  platforms hung up

  & rolled by ropes

  2.15 an hour but

  not knowing the

  Egyptian Kingdom

  splendor of their

  work now in the

  misty Rich Hill

  night, the

  Proustian Goof of

  that thing

  Evening, aftersupper

  evening in Richmond Hill —

  the cool sweet sky is full

  of fine little white puffs

  separated angelically

  in regular

  — over the tree the

  pink hint sensation white

  is calm, the tree quivers

  at the leaf — sweet

  is the coolness, even the

  filmy wire on my TV antenna,

  the new transparent aerial

  curve is cool, white, blue —

  but in the sound & the

  sensation the crickets

  muscle whistle, others

  repeat the idiot creek

  creek from denser yards,

  cats lap & lick,

  bugs hover, night breathes

  sweet soft vastness

  into heaven —

  the motionless green

  grass is like iron, chlorophyll,

  Chinese, densely

  personalized, rugged, almost

  pockmarked, rich, as

  if chewed — hanging

  pajamas & rugs on

  lines move majestic

  & slow in a cross

  movement, now they

  hustle a little up —

  flowers blaze in their

  own radium world —

  in night they aureate

  to no human eyes

  unseen magical darts

  of prismatic Violet

  light, for mosquitos

  to whir in front of —

  Huge purple transparent

  phosphorescent night

  fall now pinks the

  white page of life,

  faces lost in hate

  & personal pitbottom

  dislikes, hasseled heavy

  footed too-much-with

  himself man fawdling

  in yards of pride,

  whining at the dogs

  of time, overhead

  groans the airplane

  of his far reached

  folly —

  and so the crickets

  creek, cree, cree —

  eaves darken & get

  inky gainst whitened

  dusk — the pale

  dawn dusk clouds

  move not but silent

  in a mass advance

  somewhere slowly —

  it was in evenings like

  this I’d lie in my skin

  & jeans in California

 
waiting for the Apocalypse

  & for Armageddon,

  ready, head on lamp,

  feet in big shoes,

  pants tight, wallet

  hanky knife tight,

  no money no home

  no need but a can

  of beans & the

  responsibility of engines

  on the sticky steel

  rail — As now the

  grape of that

  California Wine spread

  in the West, shooting

  phosphor glory over

  the Come of the

  World — The

  green weeds like

  with glaze on them

  tough skin as now did

  communicate with

  me a vegetative

  friendliness

  Mardou’s — the gray light

  of Paradise Alley falls

  down the draining gray stained

  wall with old gray paint

  churred windows, outside’s

  the scream of a little

  girl — The hum big buzz

  city flowing in by thousandmoth

  waves — The

  silence of Mardou’s

  clothes, the water bottle,

  rumpled bed — face

  American goofing in

  sheets — little sweet

  sad radio — Love

  shoulders of Mardou

  Little tree & bush buds on

  the screen outside — some

  are dead little dry ravelled

  quiverers in a dry void —

  some almost that way

  but still organically

  vine likely tangled by strings

  of green life to the twig

  bough of the bush & will

  receive their comedownance

  come October soon —

  some still green & juicy

  lifed, twirled lifelikely

  around on a yellow

  Lonestem to droop in

  the August sorrow of

  peace & gas fumes from

  hiway — some twig

  ends are so small almost

  unseeable & bear nothing

  but dead leaves who not

  only sucked it dry but

  had taken a chance &

  pitched a mansion of

  life there but father-

  twig missed, castrated,

  cancered out & done

  did die so now it’s a

  pale Indian sticklet

  with rorfled dood

  leaves bup to dooded

  no-life & shake to

  quiver of earth on a

  general bush bearing

  no relation to world

  — insignificant, skinny

  as sticks in graves —

  the big healthy deep

  green leaves have et

  up all the juice of the

  bush, they spring from

  elastic stems straight

  from the gnarly roothowa’d