CONSIDERATIONS ON SUCH HEIGHT

And then there were none. Well, there is still the dazed and confused Taliban-loving Patti Smith. But after Ginsberg and Burroughs left the beat in the late 90s, andCorso ducked behind the curtain in 2001, Jim Carroll was damn near the final nail in the famous and infamous Beat Generation tool shed annex to fade to rust.

Carroll contributed an untitled poem to the pages of Rolling Stone at the height of his rock and roll stardom:

It’s sad this vision required such height.
I’d have preferred to be down with the others, in the stadium.
They know the terror of birds.
I am left, instead, with the deep drone…
The urgency to deliver light, as if it
were some news from the far galaxies.

[From Issue 321 — July 10, 1980]

Jim Carroll was 60.

Actor and dancer Patrick Swayze also died this week of pancreatic cancer. He was 57.