A Walk With Jim Carroll

There are no sharp needles
Only jagged tidal waves
Walled grey and sharp-
Impenetrable to passion,
Washing the spirits off my beach
Prompting a ghostly exodus
Wounding without touching-
Surgical and cold,
Smelling only of salt and stone.
Wishing for a shadow of your absence
To glide along beside me...
Making jokes out of the gloom
Poking over-embraced nihilism
With the jagged edge of your smile-
Or half of one- so ironic--
Dark fighting darkness-
Daring to ask questions
Of the dim Lords of Sadness.
Sitting in the fishbowl window,
Lost in smokey coffied blackness
Awaiting a glimmering to shine-
Bright, in sight, turning right--
Toward strange slight glimpses
Of imagined wholeness-
A unity defying all discordant sounds
Splashing up to me
From glittering rain washed streets
Empty, silent, free-
Redeemed only now
And by the faintest touch
Of invincible light.