I have been telling people for years that Visions of Cody is my favorite novel by Jack Kerouac, a brilliant, panoramic portrait of the American landscape that also contains pages and pages of transcribed conversations between Kerouac and his good friend Neal Cassady, both of whom were famous talkers.
In my opinion, the best poetry Kerouac produced can be found in Mexico City Blues.
The following poem was inspired by Kerouac's life and work as well as my impressions of these two literary masterpieces.
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| After Visions of Cody Collage by Christopher Luna |
After
Visions of Cody
by Christopher Luna
pages and pages of
oomp-pa-pi-dah
hip jive
& muzzy gobbledygook
mid-Century
mascu-line
Buddhist glossolalia
exophonic explorer’s
linguistic innovations
the gift of idetic recall
in panoramic
sweep across the soil
of the American landscape
a tale told by conquerors
conquerors’ sons
perpetrators of
genocide and
their filial beneficiaries
wild, joyful
not yet pickled
nor doomed
to descend
into boredom
not yet become
just another
reactionary
who moved back
in with Mom
to hide from the world
beat by capitalism
beatific
in spite of himself
visionary free
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