“Jack Kerouac Blues” by Mikael Covey April 4, 2008
Posted by Rodger Jacobs in Beat Inspired.Tags: Beat poetry, blues, Jack Kerouac, Mikael Covey, poetry, poets, writers, writing
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O Jesus Jack you make me want to cry
I hear your words and know that you are dead
I hear your living words and know you’re dead
by your own hand
I just don’t know for why
you say your “form of blues…is limited…”
and no one cares and no one ever did
O Jesus why, it makes me wanna cry
and what’s this called the blues
you took with you
to everywhere you went
from here to hell and gone
and what’s to do now
what’s this called the blues
that’s made of you
while time is meaning nothing ‘til you die
and roxy poets coax you with their muse
not one of you drank deep enough
to know you were alive, not one of you
and what’s this spirit brother called the blues
and what’s to do
O Jesus Jack they sat and watched you die
a thousand times
not one of them your equal by a mile
as wide as tears
not one of them your mistress
or your master by the sea
not one of them you always ran to see
could ever see
you running after life
with death in hand
and death inside
or what to do
about this thing you called the blues
that’s all of you
and all you ever do
O Jesus Jack
it’s all you ever knew
you make your desperate choices
then the choices they make you
(Mikael Covey lives in Dakota with his five-year-old daughter. You can find him at Stokeycat and Lit Up Magazine.)
I had a chance, after accepting this piece, to read it very carefully while editing it (well, adding four line breaks and taking out HTML code) and the more carefully I read it, the better and deeper it got. Nice job, Mikael.
yep–good piece–out loud is even better
Good job, Mike, and thanks directing me towards the website.