and I buy Buddha...

by Jack Kerouac ©

172.5 x 460mm (front and back) -
6¾ x 18"
Designed to be opened out for display

Pack of 4 large cards - 
£3.00 - (P-141)

In the summer of 1956, prior to becoming famous and before being acknowledged as one of the 20th century’s great innovative writers, Jack Kerouac made his way to work as a forest fire watchman on a remote mountain top cabin on Desolation Peak in Mt Baker Natl.Pk. in the Pacific North West.

After 6 weeks of solitary mountain top contemplation and without seeing another human being, in his unique poetic ‘flow of consciousness’ style Kerouac wrote down this vision of what he thought the Buddha was trying to say.


 

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and I buy Buddha . . . . .
who said that what he said
was neither true 
nor untrue

and there’s the only true thing 
or good thing I ever heard
and it rings a cloudy bell
a mighty supramundane gong 

he said : ‘ your trip is long, illimitable,
you came to this raindrop called your life 
and call it ‘yours’ 
we have purposed 
that you vow to be awakened 
whether in a million lifetimes 
you disregard this Kingly Heeding
it’s still a raindrop in the sea
and who’s disturbed 
and what . . . what is time ?
this Bright Ocean of Infinitude 
sails many fish afar that come and go
like the sparkle on your lake mind 
but dive into the rectangular white blaze 
of this thought . . . now

you have been assigned to wake up
this . . . this . . . is the golden eternity
which knowledge will do you no earthly good
for earth’s not pith, a crystal myth 

face the AAA-H truth, awakener 
be you not knuckled under 
the wile of cold or heat, comfort or unrepose 
be you mindful moth of eternity 
be you loving lad, lord, of infinite variety
be you one of us
Great Knowers Without Knowing
Great Lovers Beyond Love
whole hosts and unnumberable angels 
with form or desire
supernatural corridors of heat
we heat to hold you
you woke

open your arms, embrace the world, it and we rush in 
we’ll lay a silver meeting brand of golden hands
on your milky embowered brow power
to make you freeze
in love 
forever

believe ! and ye shall live forever
believe, that ye have lived forever

overrule the fortresses and penances 
of dark isolate suffering life on earth
there’s more to life than earth
there’s light everywhere 
look

there’s light
everywhere

. . . . . look



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