“DOOMSCROLLING”
For Jim Carroll (8.1.49 – 9.11.09: American author, poet, autobiographer, and musician)
I
Questions like mine don’t just fall like snow
from a July sky. Certain conditions must
be met. Because the Void is brilliant. Will
never ever take its own no for its only answer.
Even so, this morning rubs these woods where
I’m walking. Until budding branches ache against
the sky. Until the beggary of my questions dilates
in the early morning light. Until I suffer for such
An answer much like the one Jim Carroll proffered:
“I want the angel / whose bones are so sharp /
That they can break through their own excuses.”
II
Many questions are eternal. Therefore, my hunger
for the asking won’t impress anybody. Other
Questions, however, seem seasonal. And
Come and go like birds. Here are a few of mine.
First: Will a photograph allow me to bring back
My dead? Next: What am I supposed to feel
When a memory seems so real? Finally: Is
melancholy just a way of stalling, spinning wheels
on knots that won’t untie? Jim Carroll taught me
that all such queries beg the brilliant Void
with eternally starving question: Where is
the real wrong, then, in the wrongdoing?
III
Such a lot of question marks. Whatever
Happened to the answers? Jim Carroll knew
The fate that awaits such a hungry asking.
That hunger to know--how it always turns into
Begging. I’m gonna pivot on Jim and sow
Myself a wheatfield. Ask the wind to make some
Waves the grain can steal. Jim Carroll
Knew that sowing. That wheatfield and
That wind. He knew such waves. Such
Grain. That very same stealing as reaping:
“The days grow longer with smaller prizes /
I feel a stranger to all surprises…”