113 th Chorus

Mexico City Blues  - 113th Chorus

by Jack Kerouac

Got up and dressed up

and went out & got laid 

Then died and got buried 

 in a coffin in the grave, 

 Man— 

 Yet everything is perfect, 

Because it is empty, 

Because it is perfect 

with emptiness, 

Because it's not even happening. 

Everything 

Is Ignorant of its own emptiness— 

Anger 

Doesn't like to be reminded of fits— 

You start with the Teaching 

 Inscrutable of the Diamond 

And end with it, your goal 

 is your startingplace, 

 No race was run, no walk 

 of prophetic toenails 

Across Arabies of hot 

 meaning—you just 

 numbly don't get there

Johnny Depp reads a Jack Kerouac poem  from Mexico City Blues. 

 From The United States of Poetry episode "The Word."