Page 11 of Mexico City Blues


  I’m completely at a loss,

  There is no hope

  Though I know the arbitrary conception

  of suffering is racking

  my metaphysical

  handicapped ribs,

  and I dont even exist less sing,

  and I been paid

  for work I done

  when I was young

  and work was fun

  and I dont know name from mercy,

  aint got no blues

  no shoes no eyes

  no shoetongues, lungs,

  no happiness, no art,

  nothing to do, nothin to part,

  no hairs to split

  sidewalks to spit,

  words to make flit

  in the fun-of make-it,

  horror & makeshift poetry

  covering the fact I’m afraid

  to work at a steady job

  jungles of hair on my wrists

  magnified 1000 times

  in Hells of Eternity

  228th Chorus

  Praised be man, he is existing in milk

  and living in lillies –

  And his violin music takes place in milk

  and creamy emptiness –

  Praised be the unfolded inside petal

  flesh of tend’rest thought –

  (petrels on the follying

  wave-valleys idly

  sing themselves asleep) –

  Praised be delusion, the ripple –

  Praised the Holy Ocean of Eternity –

  Praised be I, writing, dead already &

  dead again –

  Dipped in ancid inkl

  the flamd

  of T i m

  the Anglo Oglo Saxon Maneuvers

  Of Old Poet-o’s –

  Praised be wood, it is milk –

  Praised be Honey at the Source –

  Praised be the embrace of soft sleep

  – the valor of angels in valleys

  of hell on earth below –

  Praised be the Non ending –

  Praised be the lights of earth-man –

  Praised be the watchers –

  Praised be my fellow man

  For dwelling in milk

  229th Chorus

  In the ocean there’s a very sad turtle

  (Even tho the SS Mainline Fishin Ship

  is reeling in the merit like mad)

  Swims longmouthed & sad, looking

  for the Impossible Except Once

  afternoon when the Yoke, Oh,

  the old Buddha Yoke set a-floatin

  is in the water where the turtle raises

  his be-watery snop to the sea

  and the Yoke yokes the Turtle

  a Eternity –

  “Tell me O Bhikkus,

  what are the chances,

  of such a happening,

  for the turtle is old

  and the yoke free,

  and the 7 oceans bigger

  than any we see

  in this tiny party.”

  Chances are slender –

  In a million million billion kotis

  of Aeons and Incalculables, Yes,

  the Turtle will set that Yoke free,

  but till then, harder yet

  are the chances, for a man

  to be reborn a man

  in this Karma earth

  230th Chorus

  Love’s multitudinous boneyard

  of decay,

  The spilled milk of heroes,

  Destruction of silk kerchiefs

  by dust storm,

  Caress of heroes blindfolded to posts,

  Murder victims admitted to this life,

  Skeletons bartering fingers and joints,

  The quivering meat of the elephants of kindness

  being torn apart by vultures,

  Conceptions of delicate kneecaps,

  Fear of rats dripping with bacteria,

  Golgotha Cold Hope for Gold Hope,

  Damp leaves of Autumn against

  the wood of boats,

  Seahorse’s delicate imagery of glue,

  Sentimental “I Love You” no more,

  Death by long exposure to defilement,

  Frightening ravishing mysterious beings

  concealing their sex,

  Pieces of the Buddha-material frozen

  and sliced microscopically

  In Morgues of the North,

  Penis apples going to seed,

  The severed gullets more numerous than sands –

  Like kissing my kitten in the belly

  The softness of our reward

  231st Chorus

  Dead and dont know it,

  Living and do.

  The living have a dead idea.

  A person is a living idea;

  after death, a dead idea.

  The idea of living is the same

  as the idea of death.

  The dead have a living idea –

  Dead, it aint my fault

  I was only an idea –

  Respected penitence in a shack

  dedicated to the study of Origin –

  The good Buddha-material

  is not a sin-cloth –

  Cloth of Light –

  Beings alive indicate death

  by their jaunty work

  Just as the dead indicate the living

  by their silence

  When rock becomes air

  I will be there

  232nd Chorus

  Buddhists are the only people who dont lie,

  In the Sacred Diamond Sutra

  Mention is made that God will die –

  “There are no Buddhas

  and no Dharmas” – means –

  There is no Universal Salvation Self,

  The Tathagata of Thusness has understood

  His own Luvaic Emanations

  As being empty, himself and his womb

  Included – No Self God Heaven

  Where we all meet and make it,

  But the Meltingplace of the Bone Entire

  In One Light of Mahayana Gold,

  Asvhaghosha’s singing in your ear,

  And Jesus at your feet, washing them,

  And St. Francis whistling for the birds –

  All conjoined though and melted

  And all be-forgotten, pas’t on,

  Come into Change’s Lightless Domain

  And beyond all Conception,

  Waiting in anticipatory halls

  Of Bar-Light, ranging, searchlights

  Of the Eye, Maitreya and his love,

  The dazzling obscure parade

  of elemental diamond phantoms

  And dominos of chance,

  Skeletons painted on Negresses

  Standing by unimportant-to-you

  Doorways, into Sleep-With-Me

  The alley way behind.

  233rd Chorus

  There is no selfhood that can begin the practice

  Of seeking to attain Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi

  Highest Perfect Wisdom

  Yet

  “Faithfully and earnestly observe and study

  and explain this Scripture to others”

  is the gory reminder of bone.

  Others. “Listen, Subhuti! Wherever

  This Scripture shall be observed and studied

  and explained, that place

  will become sacred ground

  to which countless devas and angels

  will bring offerings. Such

  places, however humble they may be,

  will be reverenced as though

  they were famous temples & pagodas,

  to which countless pilgrims will come

  to offer worship and incense.

  And over them the devas & angels

  Will hover like a cloud & will sprinkle

  offerings of celestial flowers

  upon them.”

  The Pilgrims are happy.

  The Pilgrim of the
Holy Grail, the Snail,

  The Pilgrim of the Fine Pagoda,

  The Pilgrim of the Five Tendencies

  to Hear and Support Prayer –

  No selfhood that can begin the practice

  of seeking to attain

  234th Chorus

  Holy poetry.

  “All things are empty of self-marks.”

  “If it is space

  that is perception of sight

  You ought to know,

  and if we were to substitute

  One for the other, who’d win?”

  Santiveda, St. Francis, A Kempis,

  Hara

  A sinner may go to Heaven

  by serving God as a sinner

  235th Chorus

  Dont camp,

  You know very well

  What’ll happen to you

  When you die

  and claim

  you dont know you’re dead

  when you die and you know

  “I know dont know that I’m dead”

  Dont camp. Death, the no-buzz,

  no-voices, is, must be, the same,

  as life, the tzirripirrit of thupsounds

  in this crazy world that horrifies my mornings

  and makes me mad wildhaired in a room

  like old metaphysical ogrish poets

  in rooms of macabre mysteries.

  But it’s hard to pretend you dont know

  That when you die you wont know.

  I know that I’m dead.

  I wont camp. I’m dead now.

  What am I waiting for to vanish?

  The dead dont vanish?

  Go up in dirt?

  How do I know that I’m dead.

  Because I’m alive

  and I got work to do

  Oh me, Oh my,

  Hello – Come in –

  236th Chorus

  The Buddhist Saints are the incomparable saints

  Mooing continue of lovemilk, mewling

  And purling with lovely voices for love,

  For perfect compassionate pity

  Without making one false move

  of action,

  Perfectly accommodating commiserations

  For all sentient belaboring things.

  Passive Sweetsaints

  Waiting for yr Holyhood,

  Hoping your eventual join

  In their bright confraternity.

  Perfect Divines. I can name some.

  What’s in a name. They were saints

  Of the Religion of the Awakening

  From the Dream of Existence

  And non-existence.

  They know that life and death,

  The knowing of life, muteness of death,

  Are mutual dual twin opposites

  Conceptioning on each side of the Truth

  Which is the pivot in the Center

  And which says: “Neither life

  nor death – neither existence

  nor non-existence – but the central

  lapse and absence of them both

  (in Love’s Holy Void Abode)”

  237th Chorus

  “Ma mère, tu est la terre.”

  What does that mean?

  For one thing, Damema was the mother of Buddhas,

  in Ancient India and Modern Asia

  you put up a Virgin Mary very weird

  in your altars and ikons, Damema,

  with crowns of light coming out of her head

  and lotuses and incense sticks

  and big sad blue eyes inside Flowers.

  People light perpetual candles to her name,

  Wax in glass with wick, fire,

  For 30 days the pale Mystic Face

  Of Damema flickers in the ceiling corner

  And the dogs bark outside.

  They get water from the moon,

  Send boys out of sight in baskets,

  Sleep in the streets of night,

  Playing flutes & having curbstone nightclubs

  And the curbstone put there by the British –

  They honor and beseech and pray to

  Damema.

  To me Damema is like Virgin Mary,

  Mother Maya of Siddhartha Buddha

  Died at his childbirth,

  Like all mothers should be,

  Going to heaven on their impulse

  Pure and free and champion of birth.

  Damema the Milky Mother

  Damema the Secret Hero

  238th Chorus

  Who was it wrote “Money is the root of all evil?”

  Was it Oscar Wilde in one of his witties?

  Was it Celine – nah.

  Was it Alexander Pope, Benjamin Franklin

  or William Shakespeare –

  Was it Pope in one of his many

  clever lines?

  Benjamin in his Almanac of Peers

  has Richard the Chicken Liver

  Express a private pear.

  Or is Shakespeare blowing wild

  Confucius-Polonius witticismical

  Paternity-type advice –

  “Money is the root of all evil”

  For I will

  Write

  In my will

  “I regret that I was not able

  To love money more.”

  For which reason I go into retreat

  And monastery – all monastic in a cell

  With devotions and hellpellmell

  And Yumas Arctic Gizoto Almanac

  Priotho Consumas Konas

  In the Corner, & Mother Damema

  239th Chorus

  Charley Parker Looked like Buddha

  Charley Parker, who recently died

  Laughing at a juggler on the TV

  after weeks of strain and sickness,

  was called the Perfect Musician.

  And his expression on his face

  Was as calm, beautiful, and profound

  As the image of the Buddha

  Represented in the East, the lidded eyes,

  The expression that says “All is Well”

  – This was what Charley Parker

  Said when he played, All is Well.

  You had the feeling of early-in-the-morning

  Like a hermit’s joy, or like

  the perfect cry

  Of some wild gang at a jam session

  “Wail, Wop” – Charley burst

  His lungs to reach the speed

  Of what the speedsters wanted

  And what they wanted

  Was his Eternal Slowdown.

  A great musician and a great

  creator of forms

  That ultimately find expression

  In mores and what have you.

  240th Chorus

  Musically as important as Beethoven,

  Yet not regarded as such at all,

  A genteel conductor of string

  orchestras

  In front of which he stood,

  Proud and calm, like a leader

  of music

  In the Great Historic World Night,

  And wailed his little saxophone,

  The alto, with piercing clear

  lament

  In perfect tune & shining harmony,

  Toot – as listeners reacted

  Without showing it, and began talking

  And soon the whole joint is rocking

  And everybody talking and Charley

  Parker

  Whistling them on to the brink of eternity

  With his Irish St Patrick

  patootle stick,

  And like the holy piss we blop

  And we plop in the waters of

  slaughter

  And white meat, and die

  One after one, in time.

  241st Chorus

  And how sweet a story it is

  When you hear Charley Parker

  tell it,

  Either on records or at sessions,

  Or at official bits in clubs,

  S
hots in the arm for the wallet,

  Gleefully he Whistled the

  perfect

  horn

  Anyhow, made no difference.

  Charley Parker, forgive me –

  Forgive me for not answering your eyes –

  For not having made an indication

  Of that which you can devise –

  Charley Parker, pray for me –

  Pray for me and everybody

  In the Nirvanas of your brain

  Where you hide, indulgent and huge,

  No longer Charley Parker

  But the secret unsayable name

  That carries with it merit

  Not to be measured from here

  To up, down, east, or west –

  – Charley Parker, lay the bane,

  off me, and every body

  242nd Chorus

  The sound in your mind

  is the first sound

  that you could sing

  If you were singing

  at a cash register

  with nothing on yr mind –

  But when that grim reper

  comes to lay you

  look out my lady

  He will steal all you got

  while you dingle with the dangle

  and having robbed you

  Vanish.

  Which will be your best reward,

  T’were better to get rid o

  John O’ Twill, then sit a-mortying

  In this Half Eternity with nobody

  To save the old man being hanged

  In my closet for nothing

  And everybody watches

  When the act is done –

  Stop the murder and the suicide!

  All’s well!

  I am the Guard

 


 

  Jack Kerouac, Mexico City Blues

  (Series: # )

 

 


 

 
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