Jazz Killed Itself


 POEM


Jazz killed itself

But don't let poetry kill itself


Don't be afraid

  of the cold night air


Don't listen to institutions

when you return manuscripts to

     brownstone


dont bow & scuffle

          for Edith Wharton pioneers

or ursula major nebraska prose

just hang in your own backyard

   & laugh play pretty

        cake trombone

& if somebody give you beads

  juju, jew or otherwise,


sleep with em around your neck


Your dreams'll maybe better


There's no rain

    there's no me,

I'm tellin ya man

     sure as shit

1959



poem by Jack Kerouac

taken from "Scattered Poems", 1971

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