for my mother



Chapter 1

A winter fly, a French fry. And a few other French fries: what's behind the first of the little cabinet panels. And behind the other cabinet door, on the upper left: a bowl of fresh, ripe-red, highly organic cherries. They're all stored, cozy. Hold: still life.

Moocow fresh cow, how now, love bow, moocow fresh cow, hownow, love bow, moocow, freshcow...

Months later. The French fries, they were from a local, popular fast-food chain. Not likely they’ve changed. Nope, they haven’t. Delicious. Mmm. Like they were still warm, salty cardboard strips of goodness. And the bowl of- oh, oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.

"In my medicine cabinet

the winter fly

has died of old age" -Jack Kerouac

The reader can well imagine the still life: a few French fries, an open cabinet. Kerouac’s winter fly. It’s dead. And a bowl of, oh.

The French fries are not organic. To avoid seeming judgmental the writer will say, here at the outset, most people are French fries. The worst. Plain and simple. Period. The bowl of cherries- a bowl of organic matter. A sensitive, loving human being. Most people are not sensitive, loving human beings. Both subject types are often placed side by side ad infinitum in the cities. Let us take, say, somewhere on the West Coast, say, L.A., for example, where the cabinet-stale French fries outnumber the cabinet bowls of vagrant yet organico cherries by a longshot. Those lucky, dead Kerouac flies, lounging about the scene, are part of the still life scenery, and lucky to be dead like they are.

Open it up months later, le cabinet Los Angeles, yummy, yummy French fries, and happy, happy people: people willing to cut you down first shot they get. Smile at the dead flies for poetical comfort, write about them.

Open it up months later, bowl of oh, oh. Oh. Pure poet, drowning in spiritual decomposition. Weird greens and thirsty-hungry cloud-grays comin’ outta his pure, pure poet’s eyes. Ew. Cabinet-space of death no good. Refrigerator of love, somewhere over the mountains. Somewhere. Uber den Bergen muss meine ferne heimat sein. Yes, Hesse. Somewhere. Not in this cabinet. The fries can have the flies. As for this sensitive and aware bowl of poet, he is a phoenix. Stringent bark of the cherry tree, plethora’d bark divine. Daily. Hourly. Ourchardly. Get him outta the damn cabinet of the cityscape. Get him to a riverside, a riverbank, a meadow, a mountain side, a mountain, a hill, oh, somewhere outta the the city, the Los Angeles Blues. This cabinet stinks somethin' rank. Get him outta here, and he'll blossom.

The writer is trying to make clear, the city, this writer’s particular environment, is harshly draining. Stultifying. The fruit of the lyricist poet is made fresh by a new beat of the vine. Gettin’ it?

The lyricist poet, in our case, the writer, usually goes after finding new inventions in other past inventions (literary), as in, he steals not borrows. Today, May 19, 2021, he is going to jump back on the Beat horse. He, the Beat writer, has chosen to open the cabinet door with the fresh, happy, smiling, organico cherries behind it, going on like billions of St. Teresa roses, onto and unto the lovely, milky thralldom of Beat (beatitude) eternity. The writer has been on a French Literature kick for a few weeks, writing short stories, and Proust, while he was highly enriching, was highly drawn out. The writer is deeply satisfied and pleased with Proust’s milky thralldom. But, the writer is craving some spiritual God-cravery. He is a spiritual madman.

Some notes on a scrap of paper, a typed out third draft of a single-page short story I’m working on, THE KERSHAWS WAKE, these are the notes, not the story itself, “my thoughts on K’s [Jack Kerouac’s] intimate spiritual revelations, his innocence, and his confessed dependence on such an innocence of self and self-expression. I notice that my prose has gotten rather descriptive and time-revolving but bland since I’ve been reading Proust. Then, after reading over this little story I’ve written, THE KERSHAWS WAKE, especially the paragraphs about my true to life feelings for my Guru’s Guru, Sri Sri Lahiri Mahasaya, I saw the same innocence and truth which I was craving in K’s writings in my own script. In my own confessed and innocent love and need for real spiritual teachers. The truth. I suddenly realized the flippant style of K’s, or his flippant style as I’ve seen it up to this moment, was actually a deeply spiritual ease of communion with God, communal interaction, the word on the page, the beat of the moment, between the pilgrim and God. OM SRI GURU NAMA. OM SRI GURU NAMA. I, James Storbakken, am pleased to kiss thy lotus feet. I, the humble sir. I, devoted-sometimes, striving towards all-the-time, chela, disciple, bhakti yogi, etc., etc. The poet, the sillypriest, the lover, and the writer. They must thrive together. We will, they say. We will. Somewhere uber den Bergen. Must pray in the morning. Must do my Kriya."

Alright so back to Kerouac, so I can add some little purity to the vast descriptive power which I’ve added to my sanctimonious hungers. Ha. It all began ten years ago when I first read his Dharma Bums. And it changed my life, it sure did.

The old cherries were thrown out. The French fries, I fed to the cat. Yumm (Note: in my usage of the term French fry I have maintained the capital 'f' in my use of the word 'French' in honor of the sheer grandioseness of that culture, out of an artistic sense of respect for it, very much so exhibited in a quite ironical manner, no doubt; no strings attached).

The new, shiny bowl of fresh, shining cherries sits before us, a bowl of stories. Rather than let their freshness stifle away with the French fries in The Los Angeles Blues this time around, which, although beautiful to see in a time-lapse photo series, is not so pretty to see in a person’s cabinet, I shall bring myself to thrive upon them. Ah! Cat chewing fries. Rot thrown out. Cat chewing fries. Trash taken out. Ah! Trash day's today. Trash taken out out there, too. Ah, yes, good, then.

New, shiny bowl of cherries, the poet. Any French fries around this time? I can smell ‘em, rotless rot, from a mile away. A whole city, a whole continent full of them. Toss ‘em to the cat. We got a hungry, fat, and happy-fat-assed cat, here. Toss ‘em here. All and any. Her name is Ti Gris. She's here. Her, a beloved, smoke-coated nuisance of gravylike, soft purrs and a flickery, sassylike tail.

Fresh cherries. Fresh. What’s that? Rimbaud? I’ll go grab him. I’ve just been instructed by my lovely sense of whimsicalness to go read Rimbaud. I’ll just be a few moments, must grab the book. His collected. Bilingual. Give me more than a few moments, actually. This guy’s pretty motivating.

Ah, I am reading his Ce qu’on dit au Poete a propos de fluers, or, What is Said to the Poet Concerning Flowers.

What young grace! Flower names or colours, or flings of linguistic fancy, it almost seems, what are these words, phrases, catches, lingustos?

To go on here without reading some more Rimbaud would be a detriment to the both of us, dear, gentle reader, budding artist and cultural artifact that I am to become, so, just a few more moments. Or, maybe more. Ah. Give us a minute. Viddy well.

And, before I begin back on a Kerouacian escapade, to ease my spiritual proclivities’ sweet toothliness and play lovingly with spiritualities, I'll state here that the short stories which I recently mentioned are available to read on Reedsy, here, I have them posted. The stories are sectioned into parts A, B1, and B2, respectively. Please, enjoy.

Such are the three sections. Viva Rimbaud! Viva Kerouac! and Viva Proust! But, for now: Kerouac. And my Los Angeles Minstrelsey, ‘n such.

Chapter 2

That’s what I get for buying a typewriter. PEAKY BLINDERS. Coming from the television, damn. The very thing I was utilizing surreptitiously in order to get away from everything. What the fuck? I am approaching another night’s turn. A sigh. And then, I look up to the television, the one thing I’m (though I write ironically about it and about technology) looking to for the quick escape offered by entertainment's spell, and lo! I see the lead character, Tommy: he is sittin' there all proud, havin’ at it at a typewriter! Just as I am, sittin' at this blasted kitchen table! What era are they even supposed to be in in this damned Netflix series? Must be an Underwood.

There’s nothing to it anymore. He sits smoking and poses a pondering face over his typewriter: Tommy on the telly, not I, damn! My ego must be trash to the world. My wholesome, shining treasure. None of it is sacred anymore, it seems. Caught me off guard, it did. Hey, that’s my typewriter, bud.

Chapter 3

Kerouac is the one who will be the guide for tonight, but I keep the television on in the background, PEAKY BLINDERS playing mutely, and I sit and read until an idea, or something, strikes. Or until I pass out. Peaky! Gotchya!

A Poem! Vast extravagance! Oh, it’s too hateful and crass. Damn you. I'll just leave it in the good 'ol headspace.

Chapter 4

The night's end.

“Take that half-full glass of cheap Chardonnay off of that half-assed biography of Kerouac, 'Desolate Angel: Jack Kerouac, the Beat Generation, and America,' which is, one must accede, itself sitting on top of Honore de Balzac's 'Cousin Bette,' but we digress."

“Why, damnit? He sucks. Ann Charters's and Gifford and Lee's biographies are much more clever and heartfully constructed. To say nothing of 'Memory Babe,' Gerald Nicosia's critical, biographical masterpiece. Mmmhm.”

“Listen, you have to-"

“Hey, hey. This is my time, and I am not, like the swine in Orwell’s great novel nor the swine on any given corner downtown, no offense, becoming that very thing which I claim to hate. I don’t hate. And I don’t thing, damn you. Damn nuisance, the craft of writing. All these technicalities and respectfulnesses. I'll put my glass where I please, thank you, dear rising sense of artistic and dualistic proprieties.”

“You idiotic saintfool.”

“Just arguing with the greats. Like the lost bear hiding somewhere: nowhere. Oh, anytime, anytime, anytime.” 

“Where’s that bear? He must be hiding. Is that glass of shit wine from the liquor store still sitting on that sham biography? You slimy fool. Take it off. It’s indecent. Oh, jeez. Just write.”

He, I, the writer, continues to hear himself think.

"They think bears actually hide from them. People. People really do, they do. They actually think that bears hide from them. That’s how important they think they are. Oh, Jesus Christ." -the writer

“Good enough. Clear pass for tonight. Who wrote those fresh cherries? Go make some pasta or something. Good job.”

And, to myself and to God, under my cherry-sweet sweetbreath, “Om Guru, Om Lahiri Mahasaya, Om Guru Paramahansa Yogananda, Om God, Om Guru, Om Christ, Om Om Om...”

And there goes Yogi Bearpoet gettin' his God kicks till kingdom come.

Chapter 5

I am a happy man. I will be happy, always.

Chapter 6: Epilogue

Behind a cabinet door are cherries wholesome and fresh. The cows've come home, yet again. The kids are fat and happy. And Ti Gris, my fat and happy, smokey-colored fat cat ate the remainder of Schrödinger's unwholesome French fries, if there were any. And if she did, she did it with that listless sincerity she's always been known for; ever and anon.

Moocow fresh cow, how now, love bow, moocow fresh cow, hownow, love bow, moocow, freshcow...