Running Through - Tumblr Posts
"RUNNING THROUGH" - CHINESE POEM SONG (by Jack Kerouac)
O, I today sad as Chu Yuan stumbled to the store in broiling Florida October morning heat cursing for my wine, sweating like rain, & came to my chair weak & trembling wondering if I'm crazy at last -- O, Chu Yuan! No! No suicide! Wine, please, wine!
What shall we all do, all knowing we're dying without wine to guide us to winking at death & life too --
my heart belongs to Chinese poets & their scrolls -- we can't just die -- men need wine & poetry at least
O Mao, poet Mao, not Boss Mao, here in America wine is laughed at & poetry a joke -- Death's a grim reminder to everybody already dead crashing in cars all around here -- here men and women dryly scowl at poets' sad attempts to make our lot a whole lot lesser --
I, a poet, suffer even for bugs I find upside down dying in the grass -- so I drink wine alone --
I shudder to think how dead the astronauts are going to a dead moon of no wine
All our best men are laughed at in this nightmare land but the newspapers preen in virtue -- throughout the world the left & right, the east & west, are both vicious -- the happy old winebibber is gone -- I want him to reappear -- for modern China preens in virtue too for no better reason than America -- nobody has respect for the cat asleep, and I am hopelessly inadequate in this poem -- nobody has respect for the self centered irresponsible wine invalid -- everybody wants to be strapped in a hopeless space suit where they cant move --
I urge you, China,go back to Li Po &Tao Yuan Ming
What am I talking about? I don’t know, I'm sick today -- I didn’t sleep all night, walked stumbling in the field to get wine, now I'm drinking it, I feel better and worse -- I have something to say to Mao & the poets of China that won't come out -- it's all about how America ignored poetry & wine, & so does China,
& I'm a fool without a river & a boat & a flower suit -- without a wineshop at dawn -- -- without self-respect -- -- -- without the truth --
but I'm a better man than all of you -- that's what I wanted to say