Bill & Jim
I turned one night the other way,
faster than I should have
and this beam of purple light shot
slowly from your wrists like a tired
lazer, straight to my eyes...and
dyed them blue, I swear...then I tilted
back my head to suck it to my lips,
and felt it melt down in layers
like a plutonium coughdrop...I turned
the other way to hear the reverberations
of purple light in the hollow of its flux,
it was the sound that steals snowbirds
from the wire to sing...we sleep, we
sleep without dreams, too distant from
the mirror...imitating clarity...
disguising childhood terror.
I turned the other way...always turn
the other way. One night you kissed me you
were drunk. I thought of Candy Darling
in 1971, the back room of Max’s Kansas City
with Jackie Curtis, leading me out the back
door with Lou, changing places in
the alley-way until the circle was full
and the snow turned to fire while the birds
wept on the wire for the purple light to
sing. We went back inside...it was
empty and we didn’t care. Candy
was dying and she didn’t care...
Ginger, why don’t you smile next time
they take your picture? Why are you
looking so sad in each photograph?
©1980 - Jim Carroll
Goodnight Sweet Prince,
NØ
Fuck me. I missed this one completely.
ReplyDeleteAnother good one bites the dust.
Thanks for the poem; the original and the transcription both.
Before we do anything we ask ourselves... What Would JC Do?
ReplyDelete