Jack Kerouac Poetry from
San Francisco Blues
1st Chorus

I see the backs
Of old Men rolling
Slowly into black
Stores.
3rd Chorus


3rd Street Market to Lease
Has a washed down tile
Tile entrance once white
   Now caked with gum
Of  a thousand hundred feet
Feet of passers who
   did not go straight on
Bending to flap the time
Pap page on back
With smoke emanating
From their noses
But slowly like old
   Lantern jawed junkmen
   Hurrying home with the lump
Wondrous potato bag
  To the avenues of sunshine
   Came, bending to spit,
   & shuffled awhile there.
10th Chorus
   Dig the sad old bum
No money
   Presuming to hit the store
And buy his cube of oleo
   For 8 cents
   So in cheap rooms
   At A  M  3  30
   He can cough & groan
   In a white tile sink
         By his bed
   Which is used
   To run water in
   And stagger to
   In the reel of wake up
   Middle of the night
       Flophouse Nightmares--
       His death no blackern
       Mine, his Toast's
       Just as well buttered
       And on the one side.