Ti Jean


Kerouac

Born in Lowell

century today ago

Funny, Jack how

“... he’d be hundred”

Candles cake a tragic glow

As if single person gathered

more alive than you right now

Huddled basement library

How’s that beat beneath the ground

Kissing covers

Licking pages

Swooning at your every line

Don’t they know the bars are open

Poetry improves with wine

Don’t they know the blues

Of Mexico in book

You barely touch

Choruses by mic cantated

Can’t communicate too much

Should have titled “Read In Transit”

Metaphors are parlor tricks

Publish only half in print

scrawl the rest on ruins wall

Next to where ol’ Montezuma

Scratched “Guess ya can’t win ‘em all!”

Act as if you left a treasure

That they can by plunder loot

All you did was search for meaning

“Searching” found

as meaning root

Kerouac

Died in Lowell

Nearly now fifty three years

Sing your song

for sweet Ti Jean

shout a toast or

Shed some tears

Then return to winding road

Where by mile

the truth appears


Jack Kerouac 100th birthday poem

written & read by Brian Waksmunski
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