James Douglas Morrison

PARIS JOURNAL

So much forgetten already
So much forgotten
So much to forget

 Once the idea of purity
born, all was lost irrevocably

The Black Musician
in a house up the hill

Nigger in the woodpile
Skeleton in the closet

Sorry. Didn't mean you.

An old man, someone's
daughter

Arises
& sees us still in the room
of off-key piano & bad
paintings

him off to work & new wife arriving

(The candle-forests of Notre-Dame)

beggar nuns w/ moving
smiles, small velvet sacks
& cataleptic eyes

straying to the gaudy
 Mosaic calendar Windows

I write like this
to seize you
give me your love
your tired eyes, sad for
delivery

A small & undiscover’d
park – we ramble

And the posters scream
safe revolt

& the tired walls barely
fall,
 an overfed vacuum dust-clock

I remember freeways

Summer, beside you
Ocean -brother

Storms passing

electric fires in the night

rain, night, misery
the back-ends of wagons

Shake It! Wanda,
fat stranded swamp
Woman

We still need you

Shake your roly-poly
Thighs inside that Southern tent

So what

It was really wild
She started nude
& put on her clothes.

An old & cheap hotel
w/ bums in the lobby
genteel bums of satisfied
povetry

Across the street, a famous pool-hall
 where the actors meet

former ace -home of
beat musicians
beat poets & beat
wanderers

in the Zen tradition
from China to the
Subway
In 4 easy lifetimes

Weeping, he left his pad
on orders from police
& furnishings hauled
 away, all records
& mementos, & reporters
calculating tears &
curses for the press:

“I hope the Chinese junkies get you”

& they will
 for the poppy
rules the world

That handsome gentle flower

Sweet Billy!

Do you remember
the snake
your lover

tender in the tumbled brush-weed
sand & cactus

I do.

And I remember
Stars in the shotgun night

eating pussy
till the mind runs clean

Is it rolling, God
in the Persian Night?

There's a palace
in the canyon
where you
& I were born

Now I'm a lonely Man
Let me back
into the Garden

Blue Shadows
of the Canyon

I met you
& now you're gone

& now my dream Is gone
 Let me back
Into your Garden

A man searching for lost Paradise
Can seem a fool
to those who never
sought the other world

Where friends do lie & drift
Insanely in
Their own private garden

The cunt bloomed & the paper walls
Tremled

A monster arrived
In the mirror
To mock the room
& its fool alone

Give me songs to
sing
& emerald dreams to dream

& I’ll give you love
unfolding,

Sun

underwater, It was
Immediately strange & familiar

the black boy’s
from the boat, fins & mask,

Nostrils bled liquid
crystal blood
as they rose to surface

Rose & moved strong
In their wet world

Below was a Kingdom
Empire of still sand
& yes, party-colored fishes
-they are the last to leave

The gay sea

I eat you

avoiding your wordy
bones
& spit out pearls

The little girl gave
little cries of surprise as
the club struck
her sides

I was there
By the fire in the
Phonebooth
I saw them charge
& heard
 the Indian war-scream

felt the adrenalin
of flight-fear

the exhilaration of terror
sloshed drunk in
the flashy battle blood

Naked we come
& bruised we go
nude pastry
for the slow soft worms below

This is my poem for you
Great flowing funky flower'd beast
 Great perfumed wreck of hell

Great good disease
& summer plague

Great god-damned shit-ass
Mother-fucking freak

You lie, you cheat
you steal, you kill

you drink the Southern
Madness swill of greed
you die utterly & alone
Mud up to your braces

Someone new in your knickers
& who would that be?

you know

You know more
than you let on

Much more than you betray
Great slimy angel-whore

you've been good to me
You really have
Been swell to me

Tell them you came & saw
& look'd into my eyes
& saw the shadow
of the guard receding

Thoughts in time & out of season
The Hitchhiker stood
by the  side  of the  road
& levelled his thumb
In the calm calculus
of reason.