POETIC BLOOMINGS READING ROOM #68 – “DAYDREAMS FOR GINSBERG”

Jack Kerouac, (1922-1969), was an American novelist, poet, and leader of the Beat movement. Born Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac.  His most famous book, On the Road (1957), broadly influenced cultural perceptions before it was recognized for its literary merits. On the Road celebrated the spirit of its era.

While enrolled at Columbia University, Kerouac met two writers who would become lifelong friends: Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs. Together with Kerouac, they linked to the literary movement known as Beat, inspired by Herbert Huncke, a Times Square drifter. (Read: junkie, petty thief, hustler, and writer). It expressed a feeling of being “down-and-out”. Also, there is a sense of being beat down and therefore signified the bottom of the barrel (from a financial and an emotional point of view), but as well the utmost spiritual high.

Jack Kerouac was severely beaten in a drunken brawl and later died from the internal injuries suffered in the altercation.

JACK KEROUAC 1922-1969

DAYDREAMS FOR GINSBERG

I lie on my back at midnight
hearing the marvelous strange chime
of the clocks, and know it's mid-
night and in that instant the whole
world swims into sight for me
in the form of beautiful swarm-
ing m u t t a worlds-
everything is happening, shining
Buhudda-lands, bhuti
blazing in faith, I know I'm
forever right & all's I got to
do (as I hear the ordinary
extant voices of ladies talking
in some kitchen at midnight
oilcloth cups of cocoa
cardore to mump the
rinnegain in his
darlin drain-) i will write
it, all the talk of the world
everywhere in this morning, leav-
ing open parentheses sections
for my own accompanying inner
thoughts-with roars of me
all brain-all world
roaring-vibrating-I put
it down, swiftly, 1,000 words
(of pages) compressed into one second
of time-I'll be long
robed & long gold haired in
the famous Greek afternoon
of some Greek City
Fame Immortal & they'll
have to find me where they find
the t h n u p f t of my
shroud bags flying
flag yagging Lucien
Midnight back in their
mouths-Gore Vidal'll
be amazed, annoyed—
my words'll be writ in gold
& preserved in libraries like
Finnegans Wake & Visions of Neal

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