Bibliofreakblog

FreeVerse: The Green Bus

Jim Carroll is my all-time favorite poet.  Hands down.  No question.  

He’s also the poet that probably (for better or worse) had the greatest impact on my own poetry, back when I did things like write poetry.

My autographed copy of Fear of Dreaming, which is an anthology of his work, is probably my most prized autographed book.  And yet, I didn’t meet him to get it signed.  My sister did.  

When I was in 9th grade, he was coming to the Detroit area for a reading, but the place was either 18+ or 21+.  Either way, it was on my birthday, and I was turning a measly 15.  My sister would have been 23 though, and she went in my stead, but only after conniving (and failing) to get me in.  

We wrote to him (and this was ‘98 and my parents didn’t even have a computer yet) via snail mail.  But, to make it interesting, we cut up letters from magazines to make it interesting, and outlined the predicament.  In retrospect, this is a horrible, stalkery sort of idea.  Anyways, it was forwarded to him (we sent it to his agent or publisher or something) and he only just got it that day.  So I didn’t get to go.

But he signed my book and it says “To [J.T.], Forgive me for not getting you in…Happy Birthday, with love, Jim Carroll”

Here is what was (at least at that time) my favorite poem in that book (it was originally in his volume of poetry Living at the Movies).

“The Green Bus” by Jim Carroll

What time is it in your bedroom?
the streets are becoming the red sea
                       flushed through the white forest
Where Gauguin was last seen saying goodbye

          despair in America (and Europe) oh!
we are here on 53rd and 6th watching steel
                                                    change to ivy               taxi’s
sexy dreams pierce your left ventricle
                                    your left wrist is broken,

but the time!
                      a wristwatch quickly sliding down the faced
it is 5 a.m.
          time to anticipate
                   we anticipate
what we anticipate is a vision:
foresight among the fathers slowly withdrawing from the legion
seeking the insoluble answer of the waves              I mean the streets
do you realize “I hate you”              now you sneeze

(it isn’t easy talking to you
                      through the brick genitals you’re holding,
and I tremble without boots or wings,
sitting exhausted upon the serpent’s breath

a fan moves in the sky              you are a very happy person
it drips the sordid blood
                               it stops…            the heat!
             it is 5 a.m. in the Warwick Coffee Shop
it is 5:10 in N.Y.
                                           I am in N.Y….

“no more fiesta along Houston St.” she remarked
                ”smear the river with doves and praise
                                                       the departing feathers” 

(I don’t know from your bedroom what you’re thinking,
             said the “person”              do you want to take in a movie,
and go home after and fuck maybe?

                                           you are warm today and the climate
                                                                               is happy and welcomed

shall we walk, then, to the park?
                        near the fountain?
                                            shall we sit in the grass?