— lights out —
fall, hands a-clasped, into instantaneous
ecstasy like a shot of heroin or morphine,
the gland inside of my brain discharging
the good glad fluid (Holy Fluid) as
I hap-down and hold all my body parts
down to a deadstop trance -- Healing
all my sicknesses — erasing all — not
even the shred of a "I-hope-you" or a
Loony Balloon left in it, but the mind
blank, serene, thoughtless. When a thought
comes a-springing from afar with its held-
forth figure of image, you spoof it out,
you spuff it off, you fake it, and
it fades, and thought never comes — and
with joy you realize for the first time
"Thinking's just like not thinking —
So I dont have to think
any
more"
-- Jack Kerouac, b. 12 March 1922
"Come back and tell me in a hundred years," Kerouac commanded — his koan.
"What was the face you had before you were born?"
— that question was always at the heart of Beat poetry. It could be called the "Golden Ash" school, as Kerouac qualified existence. Thus Beat: "a dream already ended ... " Thus beatific, "the Golden Ash" of dream.
-- Allen Ginsberg, Introduction Pomes All Sizes
