Jim Carroll, the poet and punk rocker in the outlaw tradition of Rimbaud and Burroughs who chronicled his wild youth in "The Basketball Diaries," died on Friday at his home in Manhattan....
Genius is not a generous thing
In return it charges more interest than any amount of royalties can cover
And it resents fame
With bitter vengeance
Pills and powdres only placate it awhile
Then it puts you in a place where the planet's poles reverse
Where the currents of electricity shift
Your Body becomes a magnet and pulls to it despair and rotten teeth,
Cheese whiz and guns
Whose triggers are shaped tenderly into a false lust
In timeless illusion
Photo/ Ray Lego, Cut the Fat films
Jim Carroll, author of The Basketball Diaries, in 1998. He gave a spoken-word performance at AS220 in Providence in 2001.
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