Jack Kerouac: Máistir Haiku

Máistir haiku ab ea Kerouac. Ní fhéadfá a rá go raibh máistreacht aige air féin, áfach, agus an méid alcóil, benzedrine is drugaí eile a chaith sé siar i gcaitheamh a shaoil ghairid.
Bhí deamhain éigin á thiomáint an t-am ar fad mar is léir d’éinne a léigh Windblown World: The Journals of Jack Kerouac 1947 -1954 in eagar ag Douglas Brinkley (Viking, 2004). Ba ghránna an duine é Kerouac ar go leor bealaí, bá aige leis an Ku Klux Klan! Ina dhiaidh sin is uile, ní ceart róshimpliú a dhéanamh air: bhí cáilíochtaí ar leith ag baint leis, gan aon agó. 
Sa bheathaisnéis a scríobh Barry Miles, Jack Kerouac, King of the Beats: A Portrait (Virgin Books, 2002), faighimid an méid seo:

“Like Narcissus he was a man constantly examining his own reflection. Kerouac never forgot himself:  he watched himself see things, he watched himself experience things. Other people become involved in activities, act unconsciously, but Jack only experienced his own consciousness of these activities. Everything was seen through this consciousness, at a remove, smaller, less involved, but tightly focused, as if seen through a magnifying lens. Because of this, his experiences seemed to him to be more intense than those of other people…’

Is an-léamh go deo ar Kerouac é sin. (Aithním cuid de na comharthaí sóirt céanna ionam féin, is baolach!) Ar aon nós, cé nach ndeir Barry Miles mórán in aon chor faoi Kerouac mar fhear haiku, tá míniú tugtha ansin aige dúinn ar chuid de na cúiseanna a dhein máistir haiku de.

éist le cantain
na n-éiníní: caillfear
na héiníní go léir!

titim na hoíche: ródhorcha
chun an leathanach a léamh,
rófhuar

an bhfuil nádúr an Bhúda
ag gadhar?
uisce is ea uisce
 

aréir ambaist
taibhreamh agam
faoi Harry Truman

stop na feithidí go léir
in ómós
don ghealach

Nat Wills, bacach bóthair
Meiriceá
1905