------------------   *
throw in the towel
*
give up the ghost
*
abandon the persona
*
die while alive
* --------------------   *
utter complete peace
AND (equals)
extreme awareness
*
exactly aware of every minute detail AS oneself
every cell pulsing with life into (as) every other cell
subject is object
environment IS oneself
no difference anywhere
who hears this silence?
who can fathom this profound joy?

*
utter complete peace
AND (equals)
extreme awareness
*

Michael Read
The Way Station  

waxing

another morning - adrift in time
nothing shall preserve this life
and it is nothing that will take this life

the smallest of things and the least of dreams
are the greatest of dreams and the most of it is dreaming
dreams are schemes of hopes and fears while moments fall into years

with your hair in the sky - combed across with eagle hawk crow and vulture
you blow kisses from the peaks - kisses of snow and rain and pine
on your breast  the mountains play - of lion and deer and bear
your fertile belly the valley below - farms ranches towns and homes
your arms and legs are rivers - that drink the corn wheat alfalfa and beans and squash
and in the deep canyon holds your mysterious love hole - where i am born

When Jerry Cimino and his wife had a bookshop in Monterey with a special Beat Generation section, tourists used to come in all the time asking about Jack Kerouac's book "Big Sur."

If they were new to the author, Cimino steered them away.

"I'd say don't read that one as your first Kerouac book," he said. "It chronicled his nervous breakdown."

Seven years after the Monterey Bay Coffeehouse Bookstore shut its doors on Alvarado street, the Ciminos are back with a new venture in downtown Monterey. And this one allows the Beat literature aficionados to be full-time Kerouac counselors.

The Beat Museum opens this week in a storefront at 211 W. Franklin St. It is a hybrid shop-museum that features Beat trinkets and art on the walls for the public's perusal. Cimino says he has been talking to contacts in the Beat community about bringing in more artifacts and possibly some guest speakers.

Meanwhile, the shop, which keeps museum hours of noon to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, sells work by authors like Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Gary Snyder, as well as t-shirts, videos and CDs related to the Beat movement.

But Cimino says he isn't just cashing in on the counterculture.

"We don't see this as a business," he said. "We see it as a way of spreading the word."

Cimino, 49, still works as a corporate salesman. His wife, Estelle, runs her career counseling business from an office behind the Beat Museum.

So the museum is a hobby, he said, that is about spreading the couple's love of Beat writers. And having a place to store all their stuff.

Cimino's personal collection of Beat artifacts sits in boxes at the store, ready to become the museum collection. It includes a Playboy magazine from 1959 with a Kerouac essay titled, "Origins of the Beat Generation," a screenplay adaptation of "On the Road," a black and white photograph of Kerouac's daughter, and an original newspaper obituary of the author from 1969.

Baltimore native Cimino traces his love of Beat authors to the eighth grade, when a teacher brought his class mimeographed copies of Ferlinghetti's book, "A Coney Island of the Mind." Cimino was raised Catholic and was "blown away" by Ferlinghetti's free verse account of the crucifixion.

Later he discovered Kerouac, who became his favorite writer. He particularly likes the novel "Desolation Angels."

"It's got the energy and drive of 'On the Road' and the spirituality of 'Dharma Bums,'" Cimino said. "To me Kerouac was all about spirituality."

Cimino first read about Big Sur in Kerouac's works, and he and his wife were driven to visit the area because of the author's lyrical descriptions. They were taken enough to move west, and they settled in Monterey a dozen years ago after living in the Bay Area. The couple opened the Monterey Bay Coffeehouse Bookshop in 1991, and when enough tourists asked if they could buy Beat literature by mail, they started a catalog. In 1994 they got the phone number (800) KER-OUAC for their mail-order business, and the next year they registered www.kerouac.com.

The bookstore closed amid money troubles in 1996, but the couple kept the mail-order business. They also kept in touch with the Beat figures they met through the store and through their attendance at conferences and readings.

Now, with the museum, the Ciminos are calling on those contacts to acquire exhibit material. Cimino hopes to bring the "On the Road Scroll" to Monterey. The 120-foot scroll on which Kerouac is said to have composed his most famous novel sold at auction in 2001 for more than $2 million.

Cimino said the goal of the museum is to spread the spirituality that drew him to Kerouac's work. The author's philosophy is all about engaging life, he said, and finding holiness in everyday things. Monterey is the perfect place for such a shrine, Cimino said.

"I consider this a power center," he said. "You can feel it emanating from the earth, from the ocean. Did Kerouac buy into it? Absolutely."

Dan Laidman can be reached at 646-4346.