Peter Orlovsky’s Jack Kerouac Lecture & Revelation:
Penny Lane, 13 March 1995 Giant
shaving cut under nose, rosary, fat tie, sport jacket, thick head of silver hair like
Boris Yeltsin
battling totalitarian Forest Services of Polka
Dot ambulance drivers in happy garbage can lid loneliness, smiling in blue, white
& red stamp machine cafe static black noise ringing
through the mortuary silences of toothless, ragged
America. Peter
Orlovsky putting out his smoke with tennis shoe bottom, says, “I have very good
news, important news for everyone. Stop talking. Turn your two eyes into ears. Turn the kettle
off. Turn the camera off. I don’t want you to repeat
this. Listen.
Forget about what I’m going to tell you. If
you write it down you’re in for a lot of trouble. Don’t
even talk to a tree about it. Shhhhhhhh. I
found out that Kerouac was reborn. In the Bronx. He’s
25 years old. Kerouac has come back. He’s got a very cranky mother in the Bronx. We
spent the day together. I’ll repeat it for the last
time. Kerouac
is back. He’s much more healthy and strong. And
he’s working very hard. Doesn’t have much time to write. He has 4 brothers. Maybe three
brothers and a sister. He writes mostly in his
heart— heart poetry. That’s about it. I never said
anything. It’s
a secret, and it can’t leave this room.” 13
March 1995 [Published in The Dance Of Yellow Lightning Over The
Ridge: Poems 1993-1997. © 1998 by Jim Cohn.]
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