Saturday, December 15, 2018

Wheaties by a pine breeze kitchen window




"The sunny mornings I'd sit on the patio enjoying my books, my kief and the Catholic churchbells. . . And on heavenly starlit nights just to lean on the roof rail (concrete) and look to sea till sometimes often I saw glittering boats putting in from Casablanca I felt the trip had been worthwhile. But now on the opium overdose I felt snarling dreary thoughts about all Africa, all Europe, the world--all I wanted somehow now was Wheaties by a pine breeze kitchen window in America, that is, I guess a vision of my childhood in America -- Many Americans suddenly sick in foreign lands must get the same childlike zen, like Wolfe suddenly remembering the lonely milkman's bottle clink at dawn in North Carolina as he lies there tormented in an Oxford room, or Hemingway suddenly seeing the autumn leaves of Ann Arbor in a Berlin brothel. Scott Fitz tears coming into his eyes in Spain to think of his father's old shoes in the farmhouse door. Johnny Smith the Tourist wakes up drunk in a cracked Istanbul room crying for ice cream sodas of Sunday afternoon in Richmond Hill Center."

Jack Kerouac
Desolation Angels

No comments:

Post a Comment