Wanted to share one of my favorite pieces written by Jack Kerouac that employs a couple of very recognizable individuals as characters. The title is "Pome on Doctor Sax," from the collection published as Pomes All Sizes, which was in the possession of City Lights Bookstore founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti for many years after Kerouac's death before seeing publication.
Just briefly for background, the character of Doctor Sax is from an earlier Kerouac novel titled (not surprisingly) Doctor Sax. Sax is a dark hero figure in the fantasy world of the novel's main character. He ultimately sees failure in his attempt to defeat a great evil within the dream and is reduced from a mysterious and monstrous alchemist to a normal man.
The poem (yes, spelled "pome' by Kerouac), written two years after the publication of the novel, finds a drunk and broken man living on Skid Row. The following excerpt begins with the third stanza and finishes at the conclusion. I'm afraid content in one of the first two stanzas may violate the forum TOU. So, without further ado...
POME ON DOCTOR SAX (EXCERPT)
Dr Sax the master knower of
Easter was now reduced to penury
& looking at Stained glass windows
in old churches-His only 2
last friends in life, this impossibly
hard life no matter under what
conditions it appears, were Bela
Lugosi and Boris Karloff, who visited
him annually in his room on 3rd Street
& cut thru the fogs of evening with
their heads bent as the bells of St Simon
tolled a heartbroken "Kathleen" across
the rooftops of old hotels where similar old
men like Doctor Sax sat bent headed
on beds of woe with prayerbeads between
their feet, Oh moaning, homes for
lost pigeons or time's immemorial
white dove
of the roses
of the unborn
astonished bliss-
And there they'd sit in the little
room,Sax on the edge of the bed with a
bottle of rotgut Tokay in his hand, Bela
in the rocking chair, Boris standing by
the sink, & sigh---
& then Sax wd always say
"Please play the monster for me" & of course
the old actors, who loved him dearly & came to
see him for human tender sentimentality not
monstrous reasons protested but he always
got drunk & cried so that Boris first had
to get up & extend his arms do
Frankenstein go uck! then Bela
wd stand & arm cape & leer &
approach Sax, who squealed
--Jack Kerouac, 1961
This same excerpt can be heard on the audio tribute album Kicks Joy Darknes in a decent reading performed by Anna Domino. Many of the other works read on the album come from the Pomes All Sizes collection.
Additionally, there is also a triptych of poems on the Frankenstein monster written by poet Edward Field that I enjoy very much, but again, the second poem on The Bride has content that may violate the TOU, so I won't reprint them here, but they can easily be found elsewhere using your search engine of choice.
Does anyone know of other published poetry that was inspired or otherwise influenced by the classic monsters?
Just goes to show you how deeply ingrained the monsters (and actors) are in the culture.