Here is one of three poems printed and distributed at the funeral for Jim Carroll:
PoemAlright
Buddha gets
A backstage pass
But his friends have to payJim Carroll
As some of you may have guessed, I'm having a bit of a hard time with the passing of Jim Carroll. I only met him once, briefly, and he was very kind to a book store clerk helping to set up an offsite signing. The reading itself was full of humor, pathos, and an unflinching look into the great maw of Being.
It is a comfort to know that his words and music live on.
Fires
Burn in my heart.
No smoke rises.
No one knows.Kenneth Rexroth from The Morning Star
my province--
even the smoke
an ancient thing
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue
best,
Don
full moon
ReplyDeletedifficulty
w the silence
do check-out that
Pax Aeternum entry over on Tom Clark's
Vanitas site
http://vanitasmagazine.blogspot.com/2009/09/tc-jim-carroll-pax-aeternum.html
Thanks, Ed ... it's a great post, great work ... Don
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry I didn't get to meet him, given the impression he has made on you.
ReplyDeleteHi Don:
ReplyDeleteBack to Monday. Quite interesting to read the lyrics while listening to "People Who Died". I don't know what to make of the phenomenon. The words come to life in the song in a fashion that does not happen (for me anyway) when simply reading them. Incredible. I always wondered who the guy was in that photo with Patti Smith - now I know. This reminds me of the Velvet Underground and David Bowie in his "Panic From Detroit" days. It's kind of a speed-punk thing . . . and then Metallica came along. Etc. Thanks for the interesting & thoughtful posts this week.
J.L.S.
Charles, The Basketball Diaries would be a fine way to get to know him - it is an experience alien to any who didn't grow up in the city yet so essentially human ...
ReplyDeleteJ, indeed, I think you've hit on area between music lyrics and poetry - it is rare that there is overlap, it's either one or the other. JC was able to do both, not unlike Patti Smith - it's a rare gift. Sort of the difference between someone getting up around the fire and declaring and ritualistic execution of shared experience in front of a hundred million - at that time in rock history to have death thrust so baldly in the face of everyone was unheard of ... for poets, round the fire, it might be fairly humdrum, though the specificity of the deaths have a power all their own.
Don
What Me Bumbler, about
ReplyDeletewhat!? Don't mention it again, forget
the past and get a life kinda
Decent Well Nigh Citizen, huh? Recall the shit.
And so you say, TWANG! That's QuickTime,
wouldn't call it sucha good idea though,
you know, been kinda thinkin' lately,
kinda finding my way home sweet home,
to put the plight stately
t'was never ever my clever policy to be
or not to be, you know, in the kinda blue,
kinda takin', you know, GREAT
great never toodledoo overdue late
care not to bother anybody kinda
motherfuckin' nevermore, that's
IT. Hark! you know, we gotta leave.
We gotta join the Communist
Wackadoo Party for the case of junk food,
somethin' like that. Gimme another one.
Uhuh, nevermind, just you go take
some pretty damn good blind date not
to think real deal things over, k?
I wouldn't call this Time too goddamn
remarkable, you know, no, you,
err, know, Einstein, that's me. What about you
too? Wanna tallymebanana, wanna
fuck? Wanna be? Wanna kinda pedigree? Hell
YES! We gotta join, you know, the Communist Party.
------
At Single Swingle.
- Peter Ingestad, Sweden