NEW YORK: THERE & BACK (For Jim Carroll)

Lost on the courts,
you flogged the dark horse
down sordid sweat stained streets
of a concrete and steel forest,
catholic boy wallowing in the mire,
existing in a cobalt blue landscape

ball man, word man,
beware the priests and junkies,
the police and coaches, and
the girls with chemical smiles,
you can't be saved by grace of God
nor by a mother's wiles,
wrap your lost innocence in tin foil,
it's just a matter of
surviving the game

and death tastes like friends

shaking loose the hard cold grip
of the city,
escaping west to the golden land
of California,
drying out in the sun,
bleaching the impurities from
the ragged soul of
the street boy poet,
metamorphosed music man,
fierce eyes stare home,
returning east to the city
that is a part of you,

finishing another chapter,
but never
closing the book.

March 24, 1996