#kerouac poems on Hello Poetry

BB Tyler Jul 2018

river trail;
a breeze in every tributary
bend

river trail;
a breeze
(in every tributary bend)

july hiking after a dip,
each breeze is welcomed.
the repetition is intentional.
my grandfather said to me
"haiku is meant to be read twice"

experimenting with the impact of grammar and punctuation
on reading

#haiku #river #americanhaiku #kerouac #poppoem #nature #life

Jo Barber Apr 2018

The Open Road

I'll never be happier
than when I'm on the road.

A bit like Kerouac,
not trying to run away.
Just want to be free
like the river.
The mere thought makes me shiver.
Not knowing.
That's the rush.
Where will I sleep tonight?
Where will I go tomorrow?
It's anyone's guess,
and I like it that way.

I'm not running from you,
I'm running from me,
to a better version of myself.
You don't need to get it,
just accept it.

Wind in my hair,
smoke in my hand,
but no longer over my eyes.
These highs
don't go any higher.

Don't agonize over me,
just let me roam free.
It's where I'm meant to be,
can't you see?

#travel #road #kerouac #smoke #clarity #free #freedom #rhyme

Antino Art Apr 2018

1950 Something San Francisco

Let's talk about this jazz club
that lives in my cellphone
in 1950 something with Chet Baker
back from the dead.
Let's toast to random notes taking flight
into the city in the middle of nothing nights we've known or been familiar with.
Let's shake hands cordially with the unfamiliar as in "deal", or "peace be with you" as if in church, tipping hats at that stranger passing by at the crosswalk some late evening in spring alongside dandelions sprouting forth from the pavement. Let's read between breaks of beats Kerouac must have hit in 1950 something San Francisco in yelps into the moonlit stages of the balcony of his boxcar boxcar boxcar gone by in a mad blur with whatever graffiti'd message of hope it bore on its sides. Let's hitch into the unknowingly infinite by way of the pen's mighty point. Let's unlearn the way syllable by syllable and demolish languaged signs like hurricane force candor blowing down fact-ory made terms and political decorum as smoke from the pages of their corporate handbook joins the Chet Baker solo note pilgrmage into the holy skyline. Let's move side by side unspoken as those jazz notes he forgot to play. Let's fill in those blanks with uninformed confidence beyond our abilities and grasp the unsayable names of our dreams remmebered. Let's see in seconds passing like bums inebriated with the holy moments gone too soon. Let's talk about nothing but this sacred second at hand on this clock unseen pointing overhead to the face of the moon gone full and hungry for attention. Let this happen only now. Only then will we talk about where it's going.

#kerouac #san #francisco #jazz #city #skyline #freestyle #biji #one #breath

Bryce Jan 2018

Kerouac

I stole you away from city lights
Yep held it in a brown balled paper bag
Drank in the words like liquor
I didn’t think anybody could see, really.
San Francisco stopped and got back on the treadmill
Made of silicon and now its gone

Beaded sweat of mind bleeds into the bay
I walked on the pier and teared up a little bit lip
The hills once covered in god are covered in another ones
I don’t know what to think of it at all

Grit the teeth against it and grind them to dust
Bite the tongue until it leaks sweet sanguine blood
I drink the wine and dine on the pain
And wish with all my dying heart to meet you again
But you are dead
Even the world you left is dead
And the minds of man are dying
Because they got way too mad of trying

Counter the counted counter-cultured counter-top
Endless sine of combating thought
I’ve walked to the golden-brown California hillcrop
And realized I stood on holy seasonal grassland genocide

With horror the minds withered United State Holodomor
Can I build a paper airplane to take away from here
In time you knew there was nothing here to fear
I cannot find it
Please help me find it

Your alley smells like **** and the taste of forlorn
Bay sits in hazy forever
The water still glitters god’s diamonds but it feels more like
A forgotten mound of coal
You cannot polish these timely souls
From bronze to something gold
If they do not want it

Men like you live to die
And we can pretend that there will be another to tell your place
But Socratic manners of speaking are banned
So too, will you be left on trial

The veil of night shines with roman jewels on an incandescent man-made interstate
I watch them sparkle in the receding mirror, all but the brightest remain
We built stars on our land and pretend they are god
And in a way they are
What poor representatives to those congresses of light
Impossibly far

So I must make do with the day we are born to
Speak words that mean worlds to you
And perhaps together we can reawake something
Disastrous after the soul, and open the I

#kerouac #beatnik #counterculture #sanfrancisco #time #lost #dead #friend

nabi 나비 Dec 2017

thank you to my friend

to my friend who knows none of my writing
yet supports my passion with everything in your being
thank you for supporting me with everything in your soul
you haven't seen any piece that i have written
yet you believe that what i write is beauty
i appreciate you so much more than you percieve
and i hope one day that i am able to fully tell you how spectacular you are
i adore how kind and accepting you have shown yourself to be
i know we have only gotten close as of recently
but i am glad that i am able to know a person quite like yourself
our friendship reminds me of allen ginsberg and jack kerouac
speaking of honest emotions and desires
thank you for supporting the poetry you have yet to see
and thank you for supporting the honest me

#friends #friendship #poetry #ginsberg #kerouac #beauty #appreciation #writing #honesty

eunsung aka Silas Aug 2017

500

five hundred words are not enough
to say all the things I need to say
but five hundred poems are **** sure enough
on hello poetry to get noticed

alas, I write poetry for the sake of poetry
just like good ole Charles Bukowski
cranking out words with a foul mouth
without a care for the audience

I write words for the sake of my soul
because it is the only time that my heart
feels free to be whatever it needs to be
without the world confining me

so **** straight. I wrote five hundred
words for my five hundredth poem
because I rarely write so many words
to express what is in my soul

I should be listening to jazz while I write this
just like Kerouac so my words will have a beat and rhythm
of the sounds of bebop, instead of a cadence of all my own
who wants originality when you can have novelty

everyone is nostalgic to recreate what has been captured before
the great writers and poets of our time regurgitate what’s been said
for me I don’t really give a **** about the words,
so much as how I let the words live out into my life through my actions

words matter because they order our thoughts and feelings,
they give shape to the amorphous images that play in our minds and hearts and once something comes into being, then oh man man do they have power
that’s why knowing the name of something really means something

who knows if meaning comes from the words, or words come from the meaning
did the chicken came first or the egg?
all I care about is how you cook the ****** chicken or the egg
fried chicken and I prefer my egg sunny side up

Bukowski eat your heart out as I write my stream of consciousness
five hundred word poem for my five hundredth poem
is it getting a bit redundant?
I am a firm believer that less is more

but sometimes I want my words to beat out like they used to
on old type writers like a **** machine gun
the beat flowing like the drums of a marching band
that gives life to even the worst of brass section

I don’t know if my heart can truly sing in a sea of so many words
I prefer capturing a single moment with 10 words, maybe 20 words
anything more than that feels like a waste
just like a coffee ice cream ruined by too much toppings

I am a minimalist at heart
even though I can’t declutter my stuff
holding onto old forgotten receipts
closet full of clothes I never wear

however, on most days my mind is clutter free
old resents are shoved out
fear written and jotted away
the book of the past closed

each day is a gift
freely given
each breath new

may you be blessed
may we keep sharing
for fun and
for free

My 500th poem on HP with 500 words.

#500 #five #hundred #words #poetry #bukowski #kerouac #jazz #hell #poet

Miss Clofullia Jun 2017

#REM

I see great ***** every day
in the subway
and, suddenly, my favorite Hitchcock movie changes from
Rear Window to Vertigo.
The movement of the train calms me down and I fall asleep quickly,
dreaming that I'm in Kerouac's car, quietly hitting the road
like ******* hit his canvas.

I see great ******* every day
on the bus that takes me home,
but not one single *****
for me to lay my ear on.
The dream comes to a crossroad where me and Jack have to part ways.
He'll go down in history like a great writer
and I'll quietly go down on memory lane in oblivion.

Memory disappointed me
and left a bad taste
in my mouth - literary ******* ain't what it used to be.

#kerouac #******* #******* #dream #*** #******* #metro #subway #memory #hitchcock

L B Mar 2017

Rivers Get Lost

The right winter
for dope and ice
for walks along the river route
home

The right winter
for arctic pin-***** wind
holes in boots
turquoise dress coat
far too thin
for walks along the river

But The Merrimack couldn’t find her way
when fabric moguls migrated south
Fascinated by nylon nasties
they traded their silks and cottons
for those petro-polyesterdays

While she—
could no more manufacture life
than mint their money
So, they blamed her
Pronounced her—“Dead”
Decried her “*****”

Now—
She wanders sadly under bridges
stopping to eddy in an overhang of birches
In dank canals, I found her sleeping
angered only at the falls

Poor outcast!
with current edge she splinters light
from cities sadder still
retching her oily stench
past Plum Island
into the sea— into me

What’re a few warm tears
falling from someplace on a bridge
to the icy waters of the Merrimack?
Rivers get lost in the ocean don’t they?

Let them find each other there

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/240872280040374240/

I never knew anything about Jack Kerouac, and only today, learned that he breathed his last on my 20th birthday in 1969, just as I came to his sad hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts to endure a baptism of my own.

#river #ma #kerouac #lowell #merrimack

iamtheavatar Mar 2017

Duluoz and Kerouac

Wake up sleeper!
Your summer days are over.
Tidy up and prepare for winter,
lest you be caught off guard.

For we have a steeple with lots of faces,
and symbols and catchphrases,
and pulpits and pews

—but never a
Duluoz and Kerouac.

And do not mistake
silence for absence.
And patience for
impotence.

For just as the sun rises
from the east.
So shall justice be served
for the least.

So then, let us say:

May our days be numbered,
and our troubles few.
And may this sweet surrender
bring us life anew.

**iamthe_avatar ©2017

A poem for love.

#love #sweet #surrender #justice #jack #steeple #kerouac #catchphrase #duluoz