Sunday, August 10, 2014

Poem Written in a Lawn Chair (looking into a garden)

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Submissive to everything
Open and alert
This is how Kerouac
Set about composing life
Off and on the road
Debauched as
A bee in the pollen
Of a trumpet rose
With pen for proboscis
He scribbled everywhere
In his secret notebooks
In the midst of discovering
Life’s secret-most forms

And so too I have come
To a point in my 57th year
Where I find my desktop
Littered about with folders
And files in a joyful mess
Overflowing all
Reasonable bounds
And I have hurried but lately
Strived to sketch the flow
Of spirits passing
Outside the doorway
In the streets below
And the shimmers of light
Discernable only to
The innermost I
As they have been cast 
Upon the eyelid’s wall


*  *  *  *  *  *

This poem has a little back story which may worth mentioning. Yesterday my wife sent me an email which really sparked my interest.  It was a list of 30 writing tips put together by Jack Kerouac -- a few essential pointers for composing more compelling hipster prose.   And I found myself strongly agreeing with nearly everything Jack recommended, especially the first five items (set forth below) which in fact inspired me to write the preceding poem.

  1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
  2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
  3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house
  4. Be in love with yr life
  5. Something that you feel will find its own form   

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