Dr Sax the master knower of
Easter was now reduced to penury
and 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, where Bela
Lugosi and Boris Karloff, who visited
him annually in his room on 3rd Street
and 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---
and then Sax wd always say
"Please play the monster for me" and of course
the old actors, who loved him dearly and came to
see him for human tender sentimentality not
monstrous reasons protested but he always
got drunk and cried so that Boris first had
to get up and extend his arms do
Frankenstein go
uck! then Bela
wd stand and arm cape and leer and
approach Sax, who squealed
Excerpt from
Pome on Doctor Sax (1961)
The moon her magic be, big sad face
Of infinity An illuminated clay ball
Manifesting many gentlemanly remarks
She kicks a star, clouds foregather
In Scimitar shape, to round her
Cradle out, upsidedown any old time
You can also let the moon fool you
With imaginary orange-balls
Of blazing imaginary light in fright
As eyeballs, hurt and foregather,
Wink to the wince of the seeing
Of a little sprightly otay
Which projects spikes of light
Out the round smooth blue balloon
Ball full of mountains and moons
Deep as the ocean, high as the moon,
Low as the lowliest river lagoon
Fish in the Tar and pull in the Spar
Billy de Bud and the Hanshan Emperor
And all wall moongazers since
Daniel Machree, Yeats see
Gaze at the moon ocean marking
the face-
In some cases
The moon is you
In any case
The moon
~ Jack Kerouac (1922-1969)
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