KEROUAC DRANK HERE

by John Rocco

The bottle to my lips
I see it like a shadow
in the bar, the tall urinals
and the day drinkers.
Leaving the
Kettle of Fish
they followed him
Shrouded Traveler
and beat Jack up
punching his saint face
and pounding his head
to bleed a Mexican night
of Tristessa’s morphine
the crash of Big Sur
Dr. Sax on the sidelines.
They beat him up
Manhattan walloped
him and wrote on
Village bathroom walls:
KEROUAC GO HOME.
You’re no good for us.

So he went home to
his universe mother
cooking for him
while he sat in the
living room
drinking
watching baseball
Dracula on the late show
dreaming of roads
trains
Neal doing hard time
a year for each joint.

The night is a poorboy
of Tokay wine
Jack drank
hopping freights
years ago outside
some city
headed to the next.

Bone told me
that when he was alone
in New Orleans
he was very happy
to have LONESOME TRAVELER
with him to share it.

I went to the bar
Gunther’s Tap Room
where Kerouac used
to drink when
he moved to
Northport, Long Island
with his cosmos mother
to get away from it all
and write. It all came
to him anyway
on his face on the picture
on the sign in the bar window
telling me
KEROUAC DRANK HERE.