Paleosensual
By Michael H. Kew
On the Other Side of Air
old jack frost,
man winter
oh i am much like you
young woman hepcat strokes past
no she says i am not
i feel how and how now i slip a slow quote into my daily lone bliss —
you had the feeling of early-in-the-morning
like a hermit's joy*
— beatitude!
fan me all across your winey reddreams
unsheathe so we see from ridge hermitage and fly red-eyed to mama-moan-sea-ocean-bone
kerouac oh parker oh ode to the february fishermen fogs
keep thy deep driftboat morning mourn of steelhead water slaughters
washing in to join my jack frost of idle fast thoughtful miles
mysterious mists and quiet valleyheavenfrost fingernailing the way
to waves of haze and laughing loafing loaves of leaves
to foul of seafood rot bound wound to sweet oh sweetness cannabis cloud
fluff my fat face in futility
come noon i broomclaw and zoomzoomy out past the breaking pacific brains
ahoy yes jack, still i can smell your cubans
from her cold gray seal salt womb
i can inhale your blue eyeballs
and that rainbow television set which watched you die all in our common dark
yes yes
your eyes are not open
do you forgive them?
old steve allen,
yea, through the speakers in my summer river car
i wheeled toward watery wisdoms
yea, steve
with jack he tinklywinked ivories alongside forests in that weird city studio of loose flies and neckties
on they went
while i deepgazed into that barbyrust fishhook for that big dinner plate
in diesel deserts of stumps
old jack, listen
old jack, smell
fleet cork swarm
and you are forgiven
perhaps
in hell
for not answering those buddha parker eyes
slain by boozejugs and jug jugglers march ‘55
jack kerouac,
your ghost flies in my endless hungover morning mists
honeydew riffles in jade slant of sun,
flowers,
they do pluck themselves
moments, they do weave into lockgolds of good
fat ford dodge chevy atop poor smashed river rock bars
cigarettes pout and pound amongst boat-trailer confusion
old jack,
a bottle is but a beginning
not?
pints of wine don't honor your mossy mind
so here we can fall onto the golden phonograph spine of charlie
thy grand buddha of bop
drop a needle and we follow his sweaty blackdrip line to flaming orange annals of great america
blow! blow! blow!
we trail him on down these old damp hills of fir branch in the plantation woods
in the ashy days as they do fly by
the swooping hooded eyes of oatmeal earth
we stumble tumbledown yes
and with you we'll paw ourselves into large quantities of the holy grapey sea sun ship
jack!
where where will you go now?
drift into pastiche deaths of sun-dial roads?
no
for now it is our winter, like our own july gorge reveries
remember the river parker,
to the sea it blew three dead men
today, killing coastal rainbow trout
fulfillment without
paleosensual rainbow goddess
of my many nights deep in gold
so, jack, we a-go-go
swimming her wet ass-cheeks apart
(*This poem is a paean to choruses 239-241 in Jack Kerouac’s Mexico City Blues, Grove Press, 1959.)
