MacDougal Street Blues - Joe Strummer, Jack Kerouac

Summer of 1954, when he left me his whole apartment

He went away with his girl someplace:

Parade among Images

Images Images Looking

Looking —

And everybody’s turning around

& pointing —

Nobody looks up

And In

Nor listens to Samantabhadra’s

Unceasing Compassion

No Sound Still

S s s s t t

Seethe

Of Sea Blue Moon

Holy X-Jack

Miracle

Night —

Instead yank & yucker

For pits & pops

Look for crashes

Pictures

Squares

Explosions

Birth

Death

Legs

I know, sweet hero

Enlightenment has Come

Rest in Still

In the Sun Think

Think Not

Think no more Lines —

Straw hat, hands a back

Classed

He exam in atein distinct

Rome prints —

Trees prurp

And saw

Because The Chessplayers Won’t End

Still they sit

Millions of hats

In underwater foliage

Over marble games

The Greeks of Chess

Plot the Pop

Of Mate

King Queen

— I know their game

Their elephant with the pillar

With the pearl in it

Their gory bishops

And Vital Pawns —

Their devout frontline

Sacrificial pawn shops

Their stately king

Who is so tall

Their Virgin Queens

Pree ing to Knave

The Night Knot

— Their Bhagavad Gitas

Of Ignorance

Krishna’s advice

Comma

The game begins —

Clip

Jean-Louis

Go home, Man

Clip

— So tho I am wise

I have to wait like

Anyotherfool

Lets forget the strollers

Forget the scene

Lets close our eyes

Let me instruct Thee

Here is dark Milk

Here is Sweet Mahameru

Who will Coo

To you Too

As he did to me

One night at three

When I w k e i t

P l e e

Knelt to See

Realit ee

And I said

'Wilt thou protect me

For 'ver?'

And he in his throatless

Deep mother hole

Replied ' H o m '

Here is the complete text:

MACDOUGAL STREET BLUES

In the Form of 3 Cantos

CANTO UNO

The goofy foolish

Human parade

Passing on Sunday

Art streets

Of Greenwich Village

Pitiful drawings of

Images on an

Iron fence

Ranged there

By self believing

Artists

With no hair

And black berets

Showing green seas

Eating at rock

And Pleiades

Of Time

Pestiferating at moon squid

Salt flat tip fly toe

Tat sand traps

With cigar smoking interesteds

Puffing at the

Stroll

I mean sincerely

Naive sailors buying prints

Women with red banjos

On their handbags

And arts handicrafty

Slow shuffling

Art-ers of Washington Square

Passing in what they think

Is a happy June afternoon

Good God the Sorrow

They dont even listen to me when

I try to tell them they will die

They say «Of course I know

I’ll die, Why shd you mention

It now — Why should I worry

About it — It ll happen

It ll happen — Now

I want a good time —

Excuse me —

It’s a beautiful happy June

Afternoon I want to walk in —

Why are you so tragic & gloomy?

And in the corner at the

Pony Stables

On Sixth Ave & 4th

Sits Bodhisattva Meditating

In Hobo Rags

Praying at Joe Gould’s chair

For the Emancipation

Of the shufflers passing by

Immovable in Meditation

He offers his hand & feet

To the passers by

And nobody believes

That there’s nothing to believe in

Listen to Me

There is no sidewalk artshow

No strollers are there

No poem here, no June

Afternoon of Oh

But only Imagelessness

Unrepresented on the iron fence

Of bald artist

With black berets

Passing by

One moment less than this

Is future Nothingness Already

The Chess men are silent, assembled

Ready for funny war —

Voices of Washington Square Blues

Rise to my Bodhisattva Poem

Window

I will describe them: —

Ey t k ey ee

Sa la o s o

F r u p t u r t

Etc

No need, no words to

Describe

The sound of ignorance —

They are strolling to

Their death

Watching the Pictures of Hell

Eating Ice Cream

Of Ignorance

On wood sticks

That were once sincere

In trees —

But I can’t write, poetry

Just prose

I mean

This is prose

Not poetry

But I want

To be sincere

CANTO DOS

While overhead is the perfect blue

Emptiness of the sky

With its imaginary balloons

Of false sight

Flying around in it

Like Tathagata Flying Saucers

These poor ignorant things

Mill on sidewalks

Looking at pitiful pictures

Of what they think

Is reality

And one

A Negro with curls

Even has a camera

To photograph

The pictures

And Jelly Roll Man

Pops his Billy Bell

Good Humor for sale —

W Somerset Maugham

Is on my bed

An ignorant storyteller

Millionaire queer

But Ezra Pound

He crazy —

As the perfect sky

Beginninglessly pure

Thinglessly already

They pass in multiplicity

Parade among Images

Images Images Looking

Looking —

And everybody’s turning around

& pointing —

Nobody looks up

And In

Nor listens to Samantabhadra’s

Unceasing Compassion

No Sound Still

S s s s t t

Seethe

Of Sea Blue Moon

Holy X-Jack

Miracle

Night —

Instead yank & yucker

For pits & pops

Look for crashes

Pictures

Squares

Explosions

Birth

Death

Legs

I know, sweet hero

Enlightenment has Come

Rest in Still

In the Sun Think

Think Not

Think no more Lines —

Straw hat, hands a back

Classed

He exam in atein distinct

Rome prints —

Trees prurp

And saw

The Chessplayers Won’t End

Still they sit

Millions of hats

In underwater foliage

Over marble games

The Greeks of Chess

Plot the Pop

Of Mate

King Queen

— I know their game

Their elephant with the pillar

With the pearl in it

Their gory bishops

And Vital Pawns —

Their devout frontline

Sacrificial pawn shops

Their stately king

Who is so tall

Their Virgin Queens

Pree ing to Knave

The Night Knot

— Their Bhagavad Gitas

Of Ignorance

Krishna’s advice

Comma

The game begins —

But hidden Buddha

Nowhere to be seen

But everywhere

In air atoms

In balloon atoms

In imaginary sight atoms

In people atoms

In people atoms

Again

In image atoms

In me & you atoms

In atom bone atoms

Like the sky

Already Waits

For us eyes open to

— Pawn fell

Horse reared

Mate Kiked Cattle

And Boom!

Cop

Shot Bates —

Cru put Two —

Out — I cried —

Pound Pomed —

Jean-Louis

Go home, Man

I mean, —

As solid as anything

Is this reality of images

In the imageless essence

Neither of em 11 quit

— So tho I am wise

I have to wait like

Anyotherfool

CANTO TRES

Lets forget the strollers

Forget the scene

Lets close our eyes

Let me instruct Thee

Here is dark Milk

Here is Sweet Mahameru

Who will Coo

To you Too

As he did to me

One night at three

When I w k e i t

P l e e

Knelt to See

Realit ee

And I said

'Wilt thou protect me

For 'ver?'

And he in his throatless

Deep mother hole

Replied ' H o m '

(Pauvre Ange)

Mahameru

Tathagata of Mercy

See

He

Now

In dark escrow

In the middleless dark

Of eyelids' lash obliviso

So

Among rains of Transcendent

Pity

Abides since Ever

Before Evermore ness

Or thusness Imagined

O Maha Meru

O Mountain Sumeru

O Mountain of Gold

O Holy Gold

O Room of Gold

O Sweet peace

Rememberance

O Nava lit yuku

Of sweet cactus

Thorn of No Time

— Ply me on ward

Like boat

Thru this Sea

Safe to Shore

Ulysses never Sore

— Bless me Gerard

Bless thee, Living

I shall pray for all

Sentient human

& otherwise sentient

Beings here & everywhere

Now —

No names

Not even faces

One Pity

One Milk

One Lovelight

S a v e