Peter Neil Carroll Poems

When the customs officer at Newark
pulled me aside to ask what I do, I told him
I'm a poet. You write jingles? he replied.

Luckily, I live with a sensible woman who
has a real job at a Silicon Valley company
producing high-tech heat-shrinkable plastics.

She brings me to my first corporate Christmas
party, not-quite bald men clutching drinks
and blond-dyed secretaries sniffing champagne.

Already the big shots are working out whom
to bed when the party runs dry, before they
retreat to their wives raising virtual children.

Unsure of my welcome, I keep to the edges, mind
my business, which is to say take mental notes
for a poem I will write someday on male privilege

until one of the suits notices me standing alone,
approaches with a handshake. Quickly I explain
my ticket of admission and he scans the room

to find the woman I live with. She's from Brooklyn,
he tells me, as if I didn't know, which is his own
home town and goes on to relate his rags-to-riches

spiel. He is affable. I take a chance and ask what
he does. He smiles, he winks, enjoying the question,
concedes he's CEO of this Fortune 500 business.

What about you, he gets around to asking, amused
as if he knows the answer. A poet I admit. His eyes
narrow, measuring carefully. That's what's great

about America, he says, invoking his wisdom, you
can be anything you want—an opera singer, an artist,
a poet—as long as you don't expect to be paid for it
...

Wandering past the sex shops in North Beach,
I slip into Caffe Trieste where a few bucks
gets you a bitter espresso, a side of salami,
then head over to the Beat Museum, reliquary
of testosterone poets and Dharma Bums.

Nearby sleeps the Condor Club, Sixties mausoleum
where a skinny giggling kid named Carol Doda
unbuttoned a white blouse, 34B bra, sang sad songs
to a herd of four-Martini ad writers glued to their seats.

A broken blossom, sighs the weary Chronicle reporter.

She went on to bigger things, mostly a pair of silicone
implants, blonde wigs and voice lessons that didn't help
off-key tunes, as if that matters when a topless 48FFF
descends from the ceiling astride a white piano
singing Hello Dolly, wiggles for 20 minutes, and ascends
like the mythic poets, leaving with her musical behind.

Once an overexcited couple, screwing on her piano,
flipped the up button until it hit the roof, the man on top
asphyxiated, the woman obliged to wait beneath him
until the morning shift pried her loose. It was tragic,
says Carol, tearing up. How does she feel about men
hitting on her? She blushes, then admits, I like it.

The scarlet light-bulb nipples no longer sparkle like rubies
on the outdoor marque, the bar stays dark in daytime,
and here I stand again on the threshold of adult mystery
and promise, wondering where the fun has gone and what
I would say if a kind woman stepped out and invited me in.

Wandering past the sex shops in North Beach,
I slip into Caffe Trieste where a few bucks
gets you a bitter espresso, a side of salami,
then head over to the Beat Museum, reliquary
of testosterone poets and Dharma Bums.

Nearby sleeps the Condor Club, Sixties mausoleum
where a skinny giggling kid named Carol Doda
unbuttoned a white blouse, 34B bra, sang sad songs
to a herd of four-Martini ad writers glued to their seats.

A broken blossom, sighs the weary Chronicle reporter.

She went on to bigger things, mostly a pair of silicone
implants, blonde wigs and voice lessons that didn't help
off-key tunes, as if that matters when a topless 48FFF
descends from the ceiling astride a white piano
singing Hello Dolly, wiggles for 20 minutes, and ascends
like the mythic poets, leaving with her musical behind.

Once an overexcited couple, screwing on her piano,
flipped the up button until it hit the roof, the man on top
asphyxiated, the woman obliged to wait beneath him
until the morning shift pried her loose. It was tragic,
says Carol, tearing up. How does she feel about men
hitting on her? She blushes, then admits, I like it.

The scarlet light-bulb nipples no longer sparkle like rubies
on the outdoor marque, the bar stays dark in daytime,
and here I stand again on the threshold of adult mystery
and promise, wondering where the fun has gone and what
I would say if a kind woman stepped out and invited me in.
...

The walleye on shell-rock sand
attracts a buzz of blue-bottle flies
flickering around the gills. The fish
I ate last night roiled my stomach.
Here lies its cousin baking in sun.
Two more come bobbing into shore,
pushed by the wake of a speedboat
spitting blue exhaust. The current cares
as little as the sailor, as the sand
on the beach. But the lake smells
fishy. I guess the walleyes swallowed
more toxin than I did. Only flies feast.
...

The man at the river
with watery blue eyes tells me
how to find everything
he's lost. Scratchy voiced, pointing
a crusty finger
like a needle knitting
through thickets,
he weaves the route:

first to Cousin Jack's barn
near the yard where the collie sleeps
and across a narrow bridge
by the broken white fence
where Dave's truck flew off
leaving his Jeannie
and the two baby girls. Turn
at the gray-stone post office.
Can't miss it. Just opposite
Frank's busted Ford that needs a motor,
he's waiting for the government check.
Now if you see the church, fresh-
painted white, you've gone too far.
Turn back in Sharon's drive,
she don't ever mind, her boys
left these parts years ago.

Stories hang here, ghost-sheets
over the depleted woods. I stop
in a clearing to look at leaves fluttering,
swirling off sycamore, hickory, oak—
the way a child turns back to wave—
the mountain stripped at the ridge.

***
...

I was a coffee man, straight shots
in the morning, eyes wide
like this fellow with slender hips
who steps from the yellow taxi, turning
to help his girlfriend emerge, reaching
through the window to pay the driver.

She's about to enter the café
when he turns her around, holds his phone
near her face, captures the nervous smile
framed by doorway and menu board.

He is black-skinned, she pallid and blonde
and hard to tell if it's the end
of a one-night stand or the second week.
Either way, she knows to follow instructions

as he turns her again, presses her
to an inside table, only a pane of glass
separating their intimacy from my solitude
outside. He orders for them both.

Me, I learned the hard way, first ask.
...

I start with the eyes, see something
of myself that sparkles when I make a quip;
the crease of her mouth, the teeth, the gap,

how her thin upper lip covers the healthy bite
she reveals only later when she really cracks up,
and I discover the color of her lips is the same

as the tips of her breasts. But what keeps my eye
is the surgical scar, two-inch keloid near the nipple
that insists laughter won't last forever.

I touch the healed rim furtively, unready
to admit the skin's fear is my own; each dimple,
nick, blemish, the body's mark against eternity

summoning. I cling, press into her folds, pull
to the wound like a man diving off the dock,
geysers of seawater tossed toward heaven.

Afloat on the bed, seeing something of myself,
I say, You're a lucky woman. She, seeing something
of herself, hangs on, saying, And you're a lucky frog
...

She was striding too fast, skidded
on a bulge in the pavement, flew
like a plane, and made a hard landing
on her face. I think she broke her nose.
Blood splattered her glasses. An old man
stopped to help her up. He brushed
off her navy blue coat. A shopkeeper
appeared with a box of tissues, dabbed
her face. The woman kept saying
thank you, thank you, thank you.
She had a refined voice, polished
manner. She wore mint-green panties.
I was behind her when it happened.
...

The ocean is sneaky, low waves, rapid
surges, a drawn backward suck. Crab-like
a breaker leaps, catches a woman stepping
in foam, snatches the top of her swimsuit.
She screams, hands jump to her breasts.
Children nearby gawk at her panic, show
fear. An older boy moves closer. Her friend
rushes with a towel, his voice soothing.
The kids turn, scatter, but the youth
stays, entranced. Man and woman retreat
to a blanket. She dresses, gathers her bag
and basket. The boy struck rigid, his face
a mask. He's done nothing but
look, seen. Her image riveted, indelible,
for him, for me, eternal.
...

Canvas backs cackle after sex
and smoothly swim apart. Trees
still bare, the woods don't filter
light. Green is greener, flesh
fleshier. Speechless deer stare
at the humping geese. We're all bait
for a passing creature. I hesitate
to approach strangers, afraid
to startle someone I may want to eat.
...