Tuesday, August 14, 2018

Casimir Wojciech writes

A PARADE OF NODS
for Jim Carroll

Forests
of granite crawl
from bent tears
of my prayer
to make a mouth
of silence.
A torrent of teeth
behind sunlight
carve sand castles
out the body. 
It is not for dreaming
or escape. Herds
of angry gods
keep the drums warm.
The power of nations
in a flash against
my ribcage, I feel
alive. An invisible
greedy hand reaches
into the nest, the
birds sing louder 
than death. And 
I save them by
unfolding the shadows
wrapped around their
secret wings.
 Jim Carroll Portrait -- Dan Lacey

1 comment:

  1. Jim Carroll was a poet and punk musician best known for his 1978 autobiographical book, "The Basketball Diaries," dealing with his teenage heroin addiction. When he was 13 Ted Berrigan introduced him to Jack Kerouac, who claimed that Carroll "writes better prose than 89% of the novelists working today." In 1967, at 16, he published "Organic Trains," his 1st collection of poetry, and by 1970 excerpts from his diary appeared in the "Paris Review." In the early 1970s he started writing film dialogue for Andy Warhol and eventually became the co-manager of Warhol's Theater. Late in the decade, when she lacked an opening act, his former roommate/girl friend Patti Smith, the "punk poet laureate" (who claimed that when they met in 1970 "he was pretty much universally recognized as the best poet of his generation") persuaded him to recite his poems while her band accompanied him. He subsequently formed The Jim Carroll Band, and Keith Richards, the Rolling Stones guitarist, helped him secure a record deal with Atlantic. His most successful song was "People Who Died" from their album "Catholic Boy":

    Teddy sniffing glue he was 12 years old
    Fell from the roof on East Two-nine
    Cathy was 11 when she pulled the plug
    On 26 reds and a bottle of wine
    Bobby got leukemia, 14 years old
    He looked like 65 when he died
    He was a friend of mine

    Those are people who died, died
    Those are people who died, died
    Those are people who died, died
    Those are people who died, died
    They were all my friends, and they died

    G-berg and Georgie let their gimmicks go rotten
    So they died of hepatitis in upper Manhattan
    Sly in Vietnam took a bullet in the head
    Bobby OD'd on Drano on the night that he was wed
    They were two more friends of mine
    Two more friends that died / I miss 'em - they died

    Mary took a dry dive from a hotel room
    Bobby hung himself from a cell in The Tombs
    Judy jumped in front of a subway train
    Eddie got slit in the jugular vein
    And Eddie, I miss you more than all the others
    And I salute you brother

    Herbie pushed Tony from the Boys' Club roof
    Tony thought that his rage was just some goof
    But Herbie sure gave Tony some bitchen proof
    Hey, Herbie said, Tony, can you fly?
    But Tony couldn't fly - Tony died

    Brian got busted on a narco rap
    He beat the rap by rattin' on some bikers
    He said, hey, I know it's dangerous
    But it sure beats Riker's
    But the next day he got offed
    By the very same bikers

    Mary took a dry dive from a hotel room
    Bobby hung himself from a cell in the tombs
    Judy jumped in front of a subway train
    Eddie got slit in the jugular vein
    And Eddie, I miss you more than all the others
    This song is for you my brother

    Later books included "The Book of Nods" (1986). Suffering from pneumonia and hepatitis C, Carroll died of a heart attack in 2009 while working at his desk on his novel "The Petting Zoo," after writing on the demise of his book's antagonist, "Finally, a last sigh of consciousness rocked him gently on the deck of an old schooner ship. Billy’s body, dark blue like the storm clouds preceding the storm, shuttered and his eyes closed dull and loosely. Sensing young Wolfram had given up the ghost, the raven glided back down aside the dead artist, whispering a last demand. 'It’s time your eyes remain shut, Billy Wolfram. Now is the time, so get on with it. Take that single step and fly.'” At his wake Smith described her 1st encounter with the dead poet: after reciting a Walt Whatman poem from memory he nodded off into an addict's slumber for a half hour, then picked up where he'd left off. She closed her soliliquy with a farewell and a salute to the beat poets who had been their colleagues -- "Jim, when you get up there, say hello to Allen [Ginsberg], and to William [S. Burroughs], and to Gregory [Corso], and to Herbert [Huncke]. And to all our friends."

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