Le Petit Mort

(RIP: Jim Carroll)

A small plain brown package

Of a bird flew into my windshield

On my way to work today

Committing suicide.

Who knows why he/she couldn’t

Take on living anymore.

Was it the spouse that drove this bird to it’s end?

I saw it flying in slow motion

Through the haze of the

Rising morning sun.

It started from the top left of the driver’s side

Arcing down in a wide curve

Until the bird hit

The top right of the passenger side

Where my daughter likes to put

Her footprints on the glass

Above the dashboard.

I was doing sixty.

I do not know how fast the bird was going.

How fast does a small brown bird fly?

It was a barely distinguishable impact.

There was a soft thud

Followed by a streak of thick brown blood

Seeping down

Then reversing

Up the windshield

As I was driving

Comprehending it all.

It was a tragic, if small, waste of life.

For some strange reason

I am reminded of all of the friends

That I’ve lost to death

In a random manner

Not unlike this.

So many of my friends have fallen

Like tiny birds

From wide open wounds in the sky.

Addiction, disease, suicide, violence, crime

And for absolutely no reason at all.

Their time was up

Like a brown bird parcel hitting

The windshield

In slow motion.

It was fast and fleeting

Events already in progress

And couldn’t be stopped.

Now, I don’t want to sound like

Jim Carroll

Who died today, ironically

On Friday, September 11th, 2009

Of a heart attack.

A grim day for the reaper

To come-a-calling

For anyone...

But even more so

For a man who’s known mostly

For his honest poetic tome

About growing up in the wreckage of

Sixties and seventies New York.

‘Jim up and died, died!’

He at least lived to sixty.

Not bad for a has been

Hustler and junkie

That cheated death before.

Jim’s delivery was laid back and nodded

With a thick New York street smart drawl.

Exposed and naked

With no apologies.

Humbled and humorous.

His laugh was peppered

With lines that were saavy and witty

And trickled of comedy

At his expense.

I always enjoyed hearing him read.

I heard about his death

On the radio

Not long after

The bird

Flew like a determined

Jet plane

Into the glass

Igniting fuel

Wrecklessly

Into an inferno

Hotter than Hell itself

Could produce.

I know that

No matter how hard

I could think about it

That there is no corollation

Between these deaths.

Some might see symbolism

Or a shared deeper meaning.

I don’t think about it that hard.

I drive.

I think about my dead friends

‘People Who Died’.

I listen to folks that were close

Talk about Jim

On the radio

As a brown bird’s blood

Sets on my windshield.