Jack Kerouac – soulcruzer

shaking his shake like

I finally finished Jack Kerouac’s Book of Sketches. The story goes that in 1951, Jack’s friend Ed White encouraged him to do like painters do and make sketches in the street but with words instead of paint. And so Kerouac did. He began writing down prose poem “sketches” in the small notebooks he kept in his shirt pocket. For two years he recorded his travels, observations, and meditations on art and life as he roamed around America and Mexico. The Book of Sketches is a compilation of all his sketch notebooks.

I really enjoyed this book. It’s like a prose poem version of Robert Frank’s The Americans. The book left me inspired to do the same, to create little prose poem sketches of my day. Since I mentioned Robert Frank, I thought I also might go back to doing Hipstomatic snapshots throughout the day and add those with the prose poem sketches.

Alright, here goes the first one… (oh and I might as well add a modern twist and add make the prose poem sketches hypertext prose poems sketches…how about that?!

—

girl – bun in her hair
bouncy breasts little tan
backpack – watching
her from a stain-glassed window
lifting heavy weights on the bench today
outside playing on my bluetooth headset

the parking ticket attendant
walks like John Wayne
how did he get this job
bullying people he can’t see
just another filthy agent of the state –
massive control

Punching the weight up to 130kg
it’s not what a body looks like
it’s what a body can do that counts.

all american nightmare
making those good girls bad

Short dude in the locker room
shaking his shake like he shakes
his thing…way too long

people are broken,
what’s the point of
trying to fix them

focus on doing my thing
like frank santra, not the cake
version but this

that’s it
i go into the evening, fresh

Oh and this puppy arrived today from the States:

Tags Jack Kerouac, prose poem sketch

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Prowling the wilderness to hear the voices cry

Post author By soulcruzer
Post date March 12, 2017
No Comments on Prowling the wilderness to hear the voices cry

Sunday evening. That time when you have to start making the mental transition from weekend to work night. I’m sat here listening to Bob Marley and the Wailers’ Catch A Fire album and burning incense. I’m in the mood for some Henry Miller, but I end of reading Smile, You’re Traveling by Henry Rollins. I like his dairy style books, specifically the Black Coffee Blues series of which this is book three in the series. Every time I listen to Henry Rollins being interviewed, I always think, what an intense dude. He was on the Joe Rogan podcast earlier this year. By the time I was done listening, I wanted to drive straight to Heathrow airport and get a flight to anywhere. Just go. And figure out everything else en route. Listening to Henry Rollins is exhausting and motivating.

I drove in to Warwick late this afternoon. My plan was to wander the streets looking for interesting things to photograph. I wasn’t expecting the place to be dead. Warwick, on a late Sunday afternoon is like a ghost town. Most of the shops are independent shops and nearly all of them are closed on Sunday. The only things open besides a few pubs and restaurants were a couple of the big retail shops. I asked the young lady manning the till at WH Smiths if it was always like this on a Sunday. She said yes pretty much all day. I felt a little bad for her standing there in this big empty store. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. I just like to browse the magazines to see what’s trending in print. Can you believe there is a whole magazine dedicated to board games. I would have thought board games were on their way out, but apparently their popularity is increasing. I guess it’s a nice change to being hunched over a screen playing people you can’t physically see.

I have another website to build, so I should probably get started on that this evening. Plus I have some podcast editing to do, but Bob is making me want to just sit back, put my feet up and sip Captain Morgan’s all evening.

Hey Jack Kerouac was born on this day in 1922. Kerouac is one my favourite writers. On the Road and Dharma Bums being my favourite manuscripts of his. I have a lot of his published work and enjoy dipping into him from time to time.

Anyway, I better make this short and get back to work before the rum kicks in completely.

Chow,

Clay

Tags Bob Marley, Jack Kerouac, Warwick