“The only truth is music.”
I run into Jack everywhere, mostly when I want to run away, which is always, except when I want everything to stay the way it is, which is also always—also the reason why I plan to run away.
For me, it’s a standing offer, a back up in a pick up loaded with pots of lavender to stick in the dry sod or mud or where ever lavender grows. I imagine he’d tell me to go. Who needs a car when you’ve got a thumb or a bar full of dim moons orbiting gins, stirring lies with the good aim of wet lips. I imagine he’d say, but why go? Why not exercise your right to stay in this seat and meet yourself over and over again by telling every stranger a different story, pouring in a little less truth every time until you’ve packed up every easel and folded it flat and that’s your life, a stack not of what you’ve painted, but the tunnel made from the places you crawled out.
I imagine he’d laugh at my pastel dream, call it a bullshit dharma, setting a doormat at the stoop of nirvana, asking for a wheel but choosing hubcap. So, today, Jack, on your ninetieth birthday, I’m going to sit in your lap with a beer next to a stranger, my white and dying cat who has leaned his skeleton next to my body, and tell him about the time he was a full moon.
MP3: Jack Kerouac- Moon (read by John Cale)
Buy Kicks Joy Darkness: 
the poems of Jack Kerouac read by Patti Smith, Hunter S. Thompson, Michael Stipe, Eddie Vedder, Johnny Depp, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and on and on
posted by holly. “In some cases the moon is you. In any case, the moon.”
6 Comments
My brother (Canada) sent me (UK) an email about the amazing appearance of the moon he saw the other night. That made me think of this track and I decided to send him a link to it. Google instantly told me that it’s on Last FM. Hmm, ok. But then there’s this intriguing “Seamstresses” link. Wow! This is the blog I always wanted to write. Music and life brought together in magic moments. Kerouac – Cale – Cat – Beautiful. Thank you, and please don’t run away.
Steve
Thank you, Stephen. I won’t run away if you won’t.
i heard someone say there is a kerouac-read version of this pome. anybody ever hear of one? thanks.
Tatha – Yes there is a Kerouac recording of “The moon her majesty”. It appeared on an album called “Poetry for the Beat Generation”, released in 1959. The album was recorded in NY in a single one hour take, unrehearsed, and featured Jack reading his “pomes” with jazz piano accompaniment by Steve Allen. EMI released it on CD in 2008. You can download the track from Amazon for $0.99, and the album, which I would certainly recommend, for $9.99. I’d guess it’s on iTunes, too.
I love the Cale version, but you can’t beat the original. I’d be interested to hear what you think of it.
Erm, I’m not really a geek, I just sound like one sometimes!
Steve
Wow! You have a wealth of knowledge, Steve. Thanks for helping out!
If that’s true, Holly, my only explanation is that I’ve had quite a long time to accumulate it! Trouble is, it’s like a badly maintained database and I can’t always access the bits that I want. The upside is that I often come across things that I didn’t even know were there. They are nearly always rewarding, whether through joy or sadness. Now, what was I going to say…?
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