Jim Carroll made it to 60

Just my own naked self and the stars breathing down, it’s beautiful.

The Basketball Diaries

Some artists are expected to die young. Hats off to Jim Carroll, one of their number. He stuck with it into his 60s and died last Friday, not of his volition.

If only Dash Snow had followed his excellent example. (Image via)

Among many others, Seattle poet Jesse Bernstein could have used more time.

More Noise, Please!

I live on a street

where there are many

many cars

and trucks

and factories

that pump

and bang and

grind all night

and day.

It is a miracle

that I can write poetry

or sleep or

talk on the telephone

or that

my lover will

visit me here

There is

so much noise.

Every few minutes

a jet comes in low

or a prop job

swings down like

a kamikaze.

There is an airport

at the end of my street.

The new age people say

that you choose

all these things –

choose the cars

and trucks and

airplanes – me and

all of my neighbors.

Maybe this is true;

maybe we can’t live

without

all this goddam noise.

Maybe I need the noise

to write poems

make love and eat.

I’m going to hang a sign

out my window

that says:

More Noise Please!

or:

Thank You For Making Noise!

Maybe we are the kind of people

who need to have

what we don’t want

just to get along,

to do the basic things.

Myself,

I could not sleep

last night,

and I could not

close the window,

either. I tried

to tear the window

out of its frame

and put it

in a closed position,

banging and ripping

with the hammer

and a screw driver,

standing on the window ledge

in my socks

three stories up.

But, the window

wouldn’t come out

and the factory was screaming

and the trucks were rumbling

and the whole world

was praying for silence

and it was up to me

to shut the window

and I couldn’t

get it down.

I was just making

more noise.

A jet went by

and all the people waved.

Thanks, I yelled

as the shifts changed

without a lull in production

at the big plant

across the street.

The workers lined up

at the bus stop

watching me with my hammer

in the window.

I put sponge stoppers

in my ears,

but I can’t stand those things

for more than a few minutes.

Finally,

I put my head

between two pillows.

It is the same

every night.

I love it

I need it.

Without you I could not live,

I would not have written

this poem,

I yell,

the window dangling

half on half off.

Come Out Tonight

Forecast in chrome and plastic.
Tyrants breathing alloy of slavery, planet hunger, versions of Jackie
O. Sherry, Sherry baby, won’t you come out tonight? And the stars
whisper like old blood at the edges of the body of night. She stood
with one hand on the phone for four hours, poised as though only a few
seconds had passed. I watched her through the crack between the shade
and the sill. She waited for a forecast in human trembling, together
with other important women. Come, come, come out tonight. The world
suffers for her: The clock hurries like a terrified animal, then stops,
dribbling saliva. She has eaten chicken pie and bubblegum. For a month
the Luftwaffe lived on raisins. Same with the French, after the war.
Jackie O. received fresh oranges from John Kennedy. Silly girl. She
cannot put down the telephone receiver. She is waiting to receive my
body of work. She wants to take it in her ear. A mottled flush builds
under her cheeks. She eats Xmas candy while she waits. The telephone
rings and rings. I am not at home. I am with Jackie O. We are eating
oranges from the President. We are alone on the roof of a Park Avenue
penthouse. Picture of Marilyn Monroe in my back pocket molded by heat
and sweat to the shape of my buttocks. You are gripping the phone
smiling, eating candy, crying. I am with the important women, now. I am
secretly an important man. Hang up the phone. I can’t dance with you,
anymore. Go to your freezer and get a popsicle. Go to your TV. Turn on
your TV. You will see me and Jackie O. She will be taking it in her
ear, the body of my work. In the Planetarium. You will receive a
forecast. I will always be more important than you. You will never be
important enough. You will never be on the whip-hand of slavery, never
be the one to wield hunger against humanity. Heaven will never be an
extension of your body. Your body will always belong to someone else.
The picture of Marilyn Monroe flutters across the roof, steaming,
shaped like me. Shaped like my ass. The sky is filled with oranges
during the war. We eat them. The president is alone in a room. He is
unimportant. As we eat his oranges the sky grows blacker. The moon
ripens and turns red. It rots and is swallowed by the darkness. You are
still by the phone. It is ringing and ringing, dead. Sherry, Sherry
baby, won’t you come out tonight. It is completely dark. The earth
freezes. You put down the receiver and go to the window. Come, come,
come out tonight.