Chorus 113 from Kerouac’s Mexico City Blues

Chorus 113 from Kerouac’s Mexico City Blues

Got up and dressed up
         and went out & got laid
Then died and got buried
         in a coffin in the grave,
Man–
         Yet everything is perfect,
Because it is empty,
Because it is perfect
         with emptiness,
Because it’s not even happening.

Everything
Is Ignorant of its own emptiness–
Anger
Doesn’t like to be reminded of fits–

You start with the Teaching
         Inscrutable of the Diamond
And end with it, your goal
         is your startingplace,
No race has run, no walk
         of prophetic toenails
Across Arabies of hot
         meaning–you just
         numbly don’t get there