Today, when I was feeling worse that Jack Kerouac
I thought this must be a touch of the Doubles,
a dizziness from reflection, or perhaps an accumulation
of appearances, too many appearances.
Pull the shades.

Sit back and relax, confide in yourself, i say.
Where did it all begin, and for what reason?
Am I a mirage of the identical, a disorder
in the analogous, some transmutation of exact endings?
One imagines Zarathustra singing in the shower.

"If you can't find a woman, find a clean old man", says Jack,
ride the greyhound, hang around the men's room, try dope."
He always shouts from the freeway entrance,
thumb aimed offensively in the direction of L.A.

Later, in the woods, I whispered like Thoreau;
"simplify, simplify. One pair of ***** is enough for any man."
Be yourself, I said. Walk down the sidewalk.
Step on all the cracks.