the dharma bums

the dharma bums jack kerouac & data

work, produce, consume, work, produce, and consume, the infernal circle.

i see a vision of a great rucksack revolution,
thousands or even millions of young children,
wandering around with rucksacks, going the mountain to pray.

making children laugh and old men glad,
making young girls happy and old girls happier,
all of them zen lunatics who go about writing poems

that happen to appear in their heads for no reason
and also by being kind and also
by strange unexpected acts that keep giving visions
of eternal freedom to everybody and to all living creatures,
that's what i like about you gold book and smith,
two guys from the east coast that i thought was dead.
i thought west coast dead.

the boys was glad, they rested up for more, and jack cooked mush, in honor of the door.

the boys was sitting in a groove of trees, listening to buddy explain the keys.
boys, sez he, the dharma is a door... let's see... boys,
i say the keys, 'cos there's lotsa keys, but only one door, one hive for the bees.
so listen to me, and i'll try to tell all, as i heard it long ago, in the pure land hall.

for you good boys, with wine-soaked teeth, can't understand these words on a heath.

i'll make it simpler, like a bottle of wine, and a good wood-fire, under stars divine. now listen to me, and when you have learned the dharma of the buddhas of old and yearned, to sit down with the truth, under a lonesome tree, in yamu arizony, or anywhere you be, don't thank me for telling, what was told me, this is the wheel i'm a-turning, this is the reason i be: mind is the maker.