Paris Journal

by James Douglas Morrison

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 tire eyes, sad for delivery

A small & undiscover'd park -- we ramble

And the posters scream safe revolt

& the tired walls barely fall, graffiti into dry cement sand

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 poverty

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 & momentos, & 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 til 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 gardens"

The cunt bloomed & the paper walls Trembled

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

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.