Poems are the world asleep
where death cannot reside
March 10, 2002:
On the eve Jack Kerouac's Birthday (March 11), Philomene reads
aloud to John from Kerouac's Scriptures of Golden Eternity. This is their
last conversation at THE ELLISON in Venice, California. John Thomas
passed away on Good Friday, March 29 at 2:56 pm.
We became gods together, John
John:
I never wanted to be either one
Philomene:
We became poets
John:
That's right
Philomene:
And that's better than all of them
John:
Of course
John:
And must you be a buddha to experience
Philomene:
I never was
John:
And Golden Eternity, if you were a buddha, would be nothing
Philomene:
You're saying that doesn't die after your body dies?
John:
I once wrote a little poem:
I know that my body will die
Philomene:
Nor the poems - they won't die
John:
It's taken for granted the poems won't die
Philomene:
Yes
John:
And we're not dying
Philomene:
Can I bring Golden Eternity with me?
John:
Which, if it's Jack Kerouac's Golden Eternity,
Philomene:
Dear, it IS the house
John:
Then you don't have to bring it with you
Philomene:
No problem - The end
Philomene:
Not saints, not buddhas, but gods
And they can be cantankerous
The old Greek gods,
the Muse: cantankerous
a buddha or a saint
Jack Kerouac's Golden Eternity, or a saint?
It would not be conscious awareness of self as being
I know that my mind will die
I know that my soul will die
But not me.
Don't even have to think about that
They'd be harder to get rid of than crab grass
We're all there is
and we're going to live forever
is the color of beer or muscatel
Yes, just as long as it doesn't fill the house
it's already there So what's your problem?
Whatever, wherever it is
it's Golden Eternity
(C) 2003 - Philomene Long / John Thomas