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When The Railroad Trains Moaned, And River-winds Blew, Bringing Echoes Through The Vale, It Was As If A Wild Hum Of Voices, The Dear Voices Of Everybody He Had Known, Were Crying: "peter, Peter! Where Are You Going, Peter?" And A Big Soft Gust Of Rain Came Down. He Put Up The Collar Of His Jacket, And Bowed His Head, And Hurried Along.

-Jack Kerouac

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When The Railroad Trains

Jack Kerouac

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When The Railroad Trains Moaned, And River-winds Blew, Bringing Echoes Through The Vale, It Was As If A Wild Hum Of Voices, The Dear Voices Of Everybody He Had Known, Were Crying: "peter, Peter! Where Are You Going, Peter?" And A Big Soft Gust Of Rain Came Down. He Put Up The Collar Of His Jacket, And Bowed His Head, And Hurried Along.

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Goddamn It, Feeling Is What I Like In Art, Not Craftiness And The Hiding Of Feelings.

This Was A Manuscript Of The Night We Couldn’t Read.

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He Had No Place He Could Stay In Without Getting Tired Of It And Because There Was Nowhere To Go But Everywhere, Keep Rolling Under The Stars.

Return Those Shoes To The Shoemaker Return This Hand To My Father This Pillow To The Pillowmaker Those Slippers To The Shop. That Wainscot To The Carpenter, But My Mind My Tranquil And Eternal Mind Return It To Whom?

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Maybe That's What Life Is... A Wink Of The Eye And Winking Stars.

The Only People For Me Are The Mad Ones, The Ones Who Are Mad To Live, Mad To Talk, Mad To Be Saved.

We Lay On Our Backs Looking At The Ceiling And Wondering What God Had Wrought When He Made Life So Sad And Disinclined.

I Don't Wanta Hear All Your Word Descriptions Of Words Words Words You Made Up All Winter, Man I Wanta Be Enlightened By Actions.

Paris Is A Woman But London Is An Independent Man Puffing His Pipe In A Pub.

And Never Really Thought I'd Amount To Anything. It Was Precisely What I Wanted The Whole World To Think; Then I Could Sneak In, If That's What They Wanted, And Sneak Out Again, Which I Did.

This Is The Story Of America. Everybody's Doing What They Think They're Supposed To Do.

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I Realized Either I Was Crazy Or The World Was Crazy; And I Picked On The World. And Of Course I Was Right.

That's The Story Of My Life Rich Or Poor And Mostly Poor And Truly Poor.

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If You Own A Rug You Own Too Much.

To The Children And The Innocent It's All The Same.

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I Am Writing This Book Because We're All Going To Die - In The Loneliness Of My Own Life, My Father Dead, My Brother Dead, My Mother Faraway, My Sister And My Wife Far Away, Nothing Here But My Own Tragic Hands That Once Were Guarded By A World, A Sweet Attention, That Now Are Left To Guide And Disappear Their Own Way Into The Common Dark Of All Our Deaths, Sleeping In Me Raw Bed, Alone And Stupid: With Just This One Pride And Consolation: My Broke Heart In The General Despair And Opened Up Inwards To The Lord, I Made A Supplication In This Dream

Down On The Lake Rosy Reflections Of Celestial Vapor Appeared, And I Said, "god, I Love You" And Looked To The Sky And Really Meant It. "i Have Fallen In Love With You, God. Take Care Of Us All, One Way Or The Other." To The Children And The Innocent It's All The Same.

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At Night I Closed My Eyes And Saw My Bones Threading The Mud Of My Grave.

We Tiptoed Around Each Other Like Heartbreaking New Friends.

I Clearly Saw The Skeleton Underneath All This Show Of Personality What Is Left Of A Man And All His Pride But Bones?

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And What Does The Rain Say At Night In A Small Town, What Does The Rain Have To Say? Who Walks Beneath Dripping Melancholy Branches Listening To The Rain? Who Is There In The Rain’s Million-needled Blurring Splash, Listening To The Grave Music Of The Rain At Night, September Rain, September Rain, So Dark And Soft? Who Is There Listening To Steady Level Roaring Rain All Around, Brooding And Listening And Waiting, In The Rain-washed, Rain-twinkled Dark Of Night?

Believe In The Holy Contour Of Life.

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My Life Is A Vast Inconsequential Epic.

Inconsequential

God Was Gone; It Was The Silence Of His Departure. It Was A Rainy Night. It Was The Myth Of The Rainy Night. Dean Was Popeyed With Awe. This Madness Would Lead Nowhere. I Didn't Know What Was Happening To Me, And I Suddenly Realized It Was Only The Tea That We Were Smoking; Dean Had Bought Some In New York. It Made Me Think That Everything Was About To Arrive - The Moment When You Know All And Everything Is Decided Forever.

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For Life Is Holy And Every Moment Is Precious.

The Bartenders Are The Regular Band Of Jack, And The Heavenly Drummer Who Looks Up To The Sky With Blue Eyes, With A Beard, Is Wailing Beer-caps Of Bottles And Jamming On The Cash Register And Everything Is Going To The Beat - It's The Beat Generation, Its Béat, It's The Beat To Keep, It's The Beat Of The Heart, It's Being Beat And Down In The World And Like Oldtime Lowdown.

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Then It's Goodbye, Sangsara For Me Besides, Girls Aren't As Good As They Look And Samadhi Is Better Than You Think When It Starts In Hitting Your Head In With Buzz Of Glittergold Heaven's Angels, Wailing, Saying We've Been Waiting For You Since Morning, Jack Why Were You So Long Dallying In The Sooty Room? This Transcendental Brilliance Is The Better Part (of Nothingness I Sing) Okay. Quit. Mad. Stop.

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You Can't Teach The Old Maestro A New Tune.

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The First Sip [of Tea] Is Joy, The Second Is Gladness, The Third Is Serenity, The Fourth Is Madness, The Fifth Is Ecstasy.

The Beauty Of Things Must Be That They End.

When You've Understood This Scripture, Throw It Away. If You Can't Understand This Scripture, Throw It Away. I Insist On Your Freedom.

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The Smog Was Heavy, My Eyes Were Weeping From It, The Sun Was Hot, The Air Stank, A Regular Hell Is L.a.

One Night I Realized That When You Give People Understanding And Encouragement A Funny Little Meek Childish Look Abashes Their Eyes, No Matter What They've Been Doing They Weren't Sure It Was Right - Lambies All Over The World.

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I Was Halfway Across America, At The Dividing Line Between The East Of My Youth And The West Of My Future.

I Was Amazed By The Fact That I Was Not The Only Writer Living, Not The Only Young Man "with A Locomotive In His Chest, And That's A Fact," Not The Only Youth With A Million Hungers And Not One Of Them Appeasable, Not The Only One Who Is Lonely Among Multitudes, And Does Not Know Why.

My Whole Wretched Life Swam Before My Weary Eyes, And I Realized No Matter What You Do It's Bound To Be A Waste Of Time In The End So You Might As Well Go Mad.

I'd Better Be A Poet Or Lay Down Dead.

Dharma Bums Refusing To Subscribe To The General Demand That They Consume Production And Therefore Have To Work For The Privilege Of Consuming, All That Cramp They Didn't Really Want Anyway Such As Refrigerators, Tv Sets, Cars, At Least New Fancy Cars, Certain Hair Oils And Deodorants And General Junk You Finally Always See A Week Later In The Garbage Anyway, All Of Them Imprisoned In A System Of Work, Produce, Consume, Work, Produce, Consume.

Aw I Don't Wanta Go To No Such Thing, I Just Wanta Drink In Alleys.'... But You'll Miss All That, Just For Some Old Wine.' There's Wisdom In Wine, Goddam It!' I Yelled. 'have A Shot!

One Man Practicing Kindness In The Wilderness Is Worth All The Temples This World Pulls.

I'd Sleep And Forget It; I Had My Own Life, My Own Sad And Ragged Life Forever.

A Fine Thing To Be Talking About Angels In This Day When Common Thieves Smash The Holy Rosaries Of Their Victims In The Street.

I Believed In A Good Home, In Sane And Sound Living, In Good Food, Good Times, Work, Faith And Hope. I Have Always Believed In These Things. It Was With Some Amazement That I Realized I Was One Of The Few People In The World Who Really Believed In These Things Without Going Around Making A Dull Middle Class Philosophy Out Of It. I Was Suddenly Left With Nothing In My Hands But A Handful Of Crazy Stars.

Don't Drink To Get Drunk. Drink To Enjoy Life.

The Only People For Me Are The Mad Ones, The Ones Who Are Mad To Live, Mad To Talk, Mad To Be Saved, Desirous Of Everything At The Same Time, The Ones Who Never Yawn Or Say A Commonplace Thing, But Burn, Burn, Burn Like Fabulous Yellow Roman Candles Exploding Like Spiders Across The Stars.

Ah Japhy You Taught Me The Final Lesson Of Them All, You Can't Fall Off A Mountain.

Roaring Dreams Take Place In A Perfectly Silent Mind. Now That We Know This, Throw The Raft Away.

The Taste Of Rain -- Why Kneel?

Mankind Is Like Dogs, Not Gods - As Long As You Don't Get Mad They'll Bite You - But Stay Mad And You'll Never Be Bitten. Dogs Don't Respect Humility And Sorrow.

What's Your Road, Man? - Holyboy Road, Madman Road, Rainbow Road, Guppy Road, Any Road. It's An Anywhere Road For Anybody Anyhow. Where Body How?

Night Is Longer Than Day For Those Who Dream & Day Is Longer Than Night For Those Who Make Their Dreams Comes True.

In Those Days He Really Didn't Know What He Was Talking About; That Is To Say, He Was A Young Jailkid All Hung-up On The Wonderful Possibilities Of Becoming A Real Intellectual, And He Liked To Talk In The Tone And Using The Words, But In A Jumbled Way, That He Had Heard From 'real Intellectuals.

I Suddenly Began To Realize That Everybody In America Is A Natural-born Thief.

And When The Fog's Over And The Stars And The Moon Come Out At Night It'll Be A Beautiful Sight.

Holy Flowers Floating In The Air, Were All These Tired Faces In The Dawn Of Jazz America.

Walking On Water Wasn't Built In A Day.

Walking On Water

There Was Nothing To Talk About Anymore. The Only Thing To Do Was Go.

All Is Well, Practice Kindness, Heaven Is Nigh.

His Friends Said, "why Do You Have That Ugly Thing Hanging There?" And Bull Said, "i Like It Because It's Ugly." All His Life Was In That Line.

..and That Was The One Distinct Time In My Life, The Strangest Moment Of All, When I Didnt Know Who I Was

Something Great Is About To Happen To Me: I'm About To Love Somebody Very Much.

If Critics Say Your Work Stinks It's Because They Want It To Stink And They Can Make It Stink By Scaring You Into Conformity With Their Comfortable Little Standards. Standards So Low That They Can No Longer Be Considered "dangerous" But Set In Place In Their Compartmental Understandings.

Somewhere Along The Line I Knew There'd Be Girls, Visions, Everything; Somewhere Along The Line The Pearl Would Be Handed To Me.

I'll Go To The South Of Sicily In The Winter, And Paint Memories Of Arles – I'll Buy A Piano And Mozart Me That – I'll Write Long Sad Tales About People In The Legend Of My Life – This Part Is My Part Of The Movie, Let's Hear Yours

At Night In This Part Of The West The Stars, As I Had Seen Them In Wyoming, Were As Big As Roman Candles And As Lonely As The Prince Who's Lost His Ancestral Home And Journeys Across The Spaces Trying To Find It Again, And Knows He Never Will.

Marylou Was Watching Dean As She Had Watched Him Clear Across The Country And Back, Out Of The Corner Of Her Eye--with A Sullen, Sad Air, As Though She Wanted To Cut Off His Head And Hide It In Her Closet, An Envious And Rueful Love Of Him So Amazingly Himself, All Raging And Sniffy And Crazy-wayed, A Smile Of Tender Dotage But Also Sinister Envy That Frightened Me About Her, A Love She Knew Would Never Bear Fruit Because When She Looked At His Hangjawed Bony Face With Its Male Self-containment And Absentmindedness She Knew He Was Too Mad.

John Clellon Holmes... And I Were Sitting Around Trying To Think Up The Meaning Of The Lost Generation And The Subsequent Existentialism And I Said 'you Know John, This Is Really A Beat Generation'; And He Leapt Up And Said, 'that's It, That's Right!'

The Air Was Soft, The Stars So Fine, The Promise Of Every Cobbled Alley So Great, That I Thought I Was In A Dream.

Scribbled Secret Notebooks, And Wild Typewritten Pages, For Yr Own Joy

Think What A Great World Revolution Will Take Place When ... [there Are] Millions Of Guys All Over The World With Rucksacks On Their Backs Tramping Around The Back Country.

We Wandered In A Frenzy And A Dream (301).

"what Do You Want Out Of Life?" I Asked, And I Used To Ask That All The Time Of Girls. "i Don't Know," She Said. "just Wait On Tables And Try To Get Along." She Yawned. I Put My Hand Over Her Mouth And Told Her Not To Yawn. I Tried To Tell Her How Excited I Was About Life And The Things We Could Do Together; Saying That, And Planning To Leave Denver In Two Days. She Turned Away Wearily. We Lay On Our Backs, Looking At The Ceiling And Wondering What God Had Wrought When He Made Life So Sad.

Whenever Spring Comes To New York I Can't Stand The Suggestion Of The Land That Come Blowing Over The River From New Jersey And I've Got To Go. So I Went.

Work From Pithy Middle Eye Out, Swimming In Language Sea.

Who Can Leap The World's Ties And Sit With Me Among White Clouds?

Don't Stop To Think Of The Words When You Do Stop, Just Stop To Think Of The Picture Better-and Let Your Mind Off Yourself In This Work.

As Early Pioneers In The Knowing, That When You Lose Your Reason, You Attain Highest Perfect Knowing.

Vanity Of Vanities… All Is Vanity.’ You Kill Yourself To Get To The Grave. Especially You Kill Yourself To Get To The Grave Before You Die; And The Name Of The Grave Is ‘success’, The Name Of That Grave Is Hullabullo Boom Boom Horseshit.

I Woke Up As The Sun Was Reddening; And That Was The One Distinct Time In My Life, The Strangest Moment Of All, When I Didn't Know Who I Was - I Was Far Away From Home, Haunted And Tired With Travel, In A Cheap Hotel Room I'd Never Seen, Hearing The Hiss Of Steam Outside, And The Creak Of The Old Wood Of The Hotel, And Footsteps Upstairs, And All The Sad Sounds, And I Looked At The Cracked High Ceiling And Really Didn't Know Who I Was For About Fifteen Strange Seconds. I Wasn't Scared; I Was Just Somebody Else, Some Stranger, And My Whole Life Was A Haunted Life, The Life Of A Ghost.

What Is He Aching To Do? What Are We All Aching To Do? What Do We Want?” She Didn’t Know. She Yawned. She Was Sleepy. It Was Too Much. Nobody Could Tell. Nobody Would Ever Tell. It Was All Over. She Was Eighteen And Most Lovely, And Lost.

I Felt Free And Therefore I Was Free.

Geniuses Can Be Scintillating And Geniuses Can Be Somber, But It's That Inescapable Sorrowful Depth That Shines Through-originality.

One Day I Will Find The Right Words, And They Will Be Simple.

I Wasn't Scared; I Was Just Somebody Else, Some Stranger, And My Whole Life Was A Haunted Life, The Life Of A Ghost.

Offer Them What They Secretly Want And They Of Course Immediately Become Panic-stricken.

I Think It's All Lovely Hallucination But I Love It Sorta.

It's All Too Much And Not Enough At The Same Time.

As We Crossed The Colorado-utah Border I Saw God In The Sky In The Form Of Huge Gold Sunburning Clouds Above The Desert That Seemed To Point A Finger At Me And Say, "pass Here And Go On, You're On The Road To Heaven.

In All This Welter Of Women I Still Hadn't Got One For Myself, Not That I Was Trying Too Hard, But Sometimes I Felt Lonely To See Everybody Paired Off And Having A Good Time And All I Did Was Curl Up In My Sleeping Bag In The Rosebushes And Sigh And Say Bah. For Me It Was Just Red Wine In My Mouth And A Pile Of Firewood

Jumping From Boulder To Boulder And Never Falling, With A Heavy Pack, Is Easier Than It Sounds; You Just Can't Fall When You Get Into The Rhythm Of The Dance.

You Were My Last Chance' She's Said But Don't All Women Say That? - But Can It Be By 'last Chance' She Doesn't Mean Mere Marriage But Some Profoundly Sad Realization Of Something In Me She Really Needs To Go On Living, At Least That Impression Coming Across Anyway On The Force Of All The Gloom We've Shared -

Struggle To Sketch The Flow That Already Exists Intact In Mind.

She Spoke Of Evenings In The Country Making Popcorn On The Porch. Once This Would Have Gladdened My Heart But Because Her Heart Was Not Glad When She Said It I Knew There Was Nothing In It But The Idea Of What One Should Do.

The Bus Roared Through Indiana Cornfields That Night; The Moon Illuminated The Ghostly Gathered Husks; It Was Almost Halloween. I Made The Acquaintance Of A Girl And We Necked All The Way To Indianapolis. She Was Nearsighted. When We Got Off To Eat I Had To Lead Her By The Hand To The Lunch Counter. She Bought My Meals; My Sandwiches Were All Gone. In Exchange I Told Her Long Stories.

I Was Surprised, As Always, Be How Easy The Act Of Leaving Was, And How Good It Felt. The World Was Suddenly Rich With Possibility.

Colleges Being Nothing But Grooming Schools For The Middle-class Non-identity Which Usually Finds Its Perfect Expression On The Outskirts Of The Campus In Rows Of Well-to-do Houses With Lawns And Television Sets In Each Living Room With Everybody Looking At The Same Thing And Thinking The Same Thing At The Same Time While The Japhies Of The World Go Prowling In The Wilderness To Hear The Voice Crying In The Wilderness, To Find The Ecstacy Of The Stars, To Find The Dark Mysterious Secret Of The Origin Of Faceless Wonderless Crapulous Civilization.

I Am Always Thinking 'what Am I Doing Here? Is This The Way I Am Supposed To Feel?'

Life Is Life, And Kind Is Kind

Somewhere Along The Line, The Pearl Would Be Handed To Me.

Something That You Feel Will Find Its Own Form.

If You Tell A True Story, You Can't Be Wrong.

An Awful Realization That I Have Been Fooling Myself All My Life Thinking There Was A Next Thing To Do To Keep The Show Going And Actually I'm Just A Sick Clown And So Is Everybody Else

She Talks With A Broken Heart - Her Voice Lutes Brokenly Like A Heart Lost, Musically Too, Like In A Lost Grove, It's Almost Too Much To Bear Sometimes Like Some Fantastic Futuristic Jerry Southern Singer In A Nightclub Who Steps Up To The Mike In The Spotlight In Las Vegas But Doesn't Even Have To Sing, Just Talk, To Make Men Sigh And Women Wonder I Guess.

Suppose We Suddenly Wake Up And See That What We Thought To Be This And That, Ain't This And That At All?

Beat Generation

...do You Think God Made The World To Amuse Himself Because He Was Bored? Because If So He Would Have To Be Mean.

Why Did I Allow Myself To Be Bored Ever In The Past And To Compensate For It Got High Or Drunk Or Rages Or All The Tricks People Have Because They Want Anything But Serene Understanding Of Just What There Is, Which Is After All So Much.

Genius Gives Birth, Talent Delivers.

We Fumed And Screamed In Our Mountain Nook, Mad Drunken Americans In The Mighty Land. We Were On The Roof Of America And All We Could Do Was Yell, I Guess - Across The Night.

Once There Was Louis Armstrong Blowing His Beautiful Top In The Muds Of New Orleans; Before Him The Mad Musicians Who Had Paraded On Official Days And Broke Up Their Sousa Marches Into Ragtime. Then There Was Swing, And Roy Eldridge, Vigorous And Virile, Blasting The Horn For Everything It Had In Waves Of Power And Logic And Subtlety - Leaning Into It With Glittering Eyes And A Lovely Smile And Sending It Out Broadcast To Rock The Jazz World.

No Man Should Go Through Life Without Once Experiencing Healthy, Even Bored Solitude In The Wilderness, Finding Himself Depending Solely On Himself And Thereby Learning His True And Hidden Strength

All The Souls To Explore! - It's Not So Necessary To Love, Really, As It Is To Settle Something Deep With All Of Those Who Really Matter. Love And Hate Are The Same Things, Differently Sifted Through Personal... Pride, Or What Have You... Personal Pride Or Even Just Personal-ness.

All I Wanted To Do Was Sneak Out Into The Night And Disappear Somewhere, And Go And Find Out What Everybody Was Doing All Over The Country.

As Far As I'm Concerned The Only Thing To Do Is Sit In A Room And Get Drunk

And I Said, 'that Last Thing Is What You Can't Get, Carlo. Nobody Can Get To That Last Thing. We Keep On Living In Hopes Of Catching It Once And For All.

Live, Travel, Adventure, Bless, And Don't Be Sorry.

There Is Universal Substance Which Is Divine Substance Because Where Else Can It Be?

But I Remember Seeing A Mess Of Leaves Suddenly Go Skittering In The Wind And Into The Creek, Then Floating Rapidly Down The Creek Towards The Sea, Making Me Feel A Nameless Horror Even Then Of 'oh My God, We're All Being Swept Away To Sea No Matter What We Know Or Say Or Do

Our Battered Suitcases Were Piled On The Sidewalk Again; We Had Longer Ways To Go. But No Matter, The Road Is Life.

All Our Best Men Are Laughed At In This Nightmare Land.

So Therefore I Dedicate Myself, To My Art, My Sleep, My Dreams, My Labors, My Suffrances, My Loneliness, My Unique Madness, My Endless Absorption And Hunger Because I Cannot Dedicate Myself To Any Fellow Being.

So Long And Take It Easy, Because If You Start Taking Things Seriously, It Is The End Of You.

I Have Fallen In Love With You, God. Take Care Of Us All, One Way Or The Other.

Don't Use The Phone. People Are Never Ready To Answer It. Use Poetry.

Galatea Was A Serious Girl. She Was Pale And Looked Like Tears All Over. Big Ed Passed His Hand Through His Hair And Said Hello. She Looked At Him Steadily. "where Have You Been? Why Did You Do This To Me?" And She Gave Dean A Dirty Look; She Knew The Score. Dean Paid Absolutely No Attention; What He Wanted Now Was Food; He Asked Jane If There Was Anything. The Confusion Began Right There.

"what Do You Want Out Of Life?" I Asked, And I Used To Ask That All The Time Of Girls.

It Is Possible For The Human Spirit To Win After All.

They Have Worries, They're Counting The Miles, They're Thinking About Where To Sleep Tonight, How Much Money For Gas, The Weather, How They'll Get There - And All The Time They'll Get There Anyway, You See.

The Page Is Long, Blank, And Full Of Truth. When I Am Through With It, It Shall Probably Be Long, Full, And Empty With Words.

Writing At Least Is A Silent Meditation Even Though You’re Going A Hundred Miles An Hour.

Man, Wow, There's So Many Things To Do, So Many Things To Write! How To Even Begin To Get It All Down And Without Modified Restraints And All Hung-up On Like Literary Inhibitions And Grammatical Fears.

Genius Gives Birth, Talent Delivers. What Rembrandt Or Van Gogh Saw In The Night Can Never Be Seen Again. Born Writers Of The Future Are Amazed Already At What They're Seeing Now, What We'll All See In Time For The First Time, And Then See Imitated Many Times By Made Writers.

Sal, We Gotta Go And Never Stop Going 'till We Get There.' 'where We Going, Man?' 'i Don't Know But We Gotta Go.

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