Uncollected Poems #2

These seven poems by Jim Carroll were published in Big Sky magazine, issue #9 (1975), and nowhere else. They have never been collected in Carroll's books.

For John Wieners

We read life's
style review shaking
from pacts drawn up in past
to weep for lost loves

5/23/74

Kitten (self pity)

I hear kitten pawing
Cheap rug above my head
The plain fact, you see,
He is one flight closer
To a moon than I becomes
A frightening idea in my mind, almost dawn
Trying to raise the body's warmth
Tomorrow
I will never be twenty-three years old again.

7/30/74

Dealers

Ju-jus weaned on jargon of light weight siblings,
Quasi-larcenous and petite . . .

acquiesce under parasols the tudor edge
of ultra-mexicans bespecled in

polaroid filter . . . clandestine drop-offs

substituting the twigs of Thai
For the weeds of dill . . . cautious

of dos per diem manicure, fortified
"con gelatin"

practitioners of isometrics with hair
unflinching (often variegated)

facilitated via Brylcreem, the legacy
of ambergris often

pearly-gated before his time by heavy caliber,
followed with undesired undulation

among the trees of bone.

8/74

I'm Living Inside Again

fuzzy jingles snail themselves
to a brain leave . . . munch
in cute arcs tired riffs of t.v. swamp

mutts snore under finger tips

a rush of familiars
climb the spine like pegged legs
up stairs of termite feasts

a few fresh dreads introduce themselves
over handball in the belly

hands vibrate to memories
of trapped elevators like epileptic hummingbirds . . .

ah yes . . . epileptic hummingbirds . . .

rude insects clog the pores in sweat sewers
from graceless anxiety of mother and church

an old regular jams out record feats
of front brain solos
in heavy runs of wah-wah

hors d'oeuvres of rich paranoia
sink the bowels to churn

this is the age where
the two mushrooms merge

vision inside the atom bursting
like the cells of oranges crushed

persistent woes skate the eyeballs'
frozen fear, that's the sound

of ice caving in . . .

12/26/74

For Edmund Joseph Berrigan

Lovely tones of mist sweep
off the channels of England
and the Irish sea ring
with the strength of a home,

from where you are and from where
you come a heritage
of an older, more final poetry
fills the breath of a new age

Edmund Joseph Berrigan
born today across the cool Atlantic

here in America another sea . . .

from this you have grown

and so will he

8/6/74

Breakfast Poem

First morning air of ocean grief
down Brighton Ave. flow like solid
raft through calm river . . . Bus gunning
engine in the grey expanse garage . . .

this stuttering earth . . ..

I want you to hear the flux

inside the shell, the hell inside

the nun, the nun inside the

moon . . .

cartoon.

1/7/75

Wingless

Wildlife falls extinct inside tubes
burning to the touch

moaning wings slide down my windows
like lucite tears . . . look here:

spiders somersault from attic ceiling
like pubic hairs

rat genitals scream across sky cathedrals

the pure logic of massacre strokes
the corporate heart

shark blood breaks aqua tides
in rushes like flowers offered up from young hands

horns of mountain sheep hang from subway fans

Airconditioned blood drips like rosaries from}
skyscraper to the cosmopolitan eye

do bison stomp snowmobile?

aborted calves drip fetus flesh
across barbecues uptown

man paints marsh skies with lead,
wingless . . . his head between his legs

finely clipped poodles dreaming in penthouse
amphitheatres across mother's molding furs.

2/8/75

All poems © 1974-1975 by Jim Carroll
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