Exploding Like Spiders

artwork entitled: Exploding like spiders across the stars

(found here)

I was looking for images for Fourth of July and randomly came across a quote I had in a draft of another post. Uncanny how perfectly it fits.

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!”

~Jack Kerouac

(found at The Run-a-muck.)

Footnote: It's funny that I like some of the beat poets (especially Charles Bukowski) even though I most often think of them as lecherous old men who treat their women badly and spend most of their time ingesting copious amounts of drugs and alcohol. In fact, I found On the Road to be boring and redundant as all they did was drive back and forth across the country and drink and chase women. But,I've definitely felt disillusionment (doesn't everyone coming of age?) as well as feeling like a drifter or outsider, so maybe that's the connection. I do also like that they brought poetry down to a level of us mere mortals. CB describes it well:

"My contribution was to loosen and simplify poetry, to make it more humane. I made it easy for them to follow. I taught them that you can write a poem the same way you can write a letter, and that there need not be anything necessarily holy about it."