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PARIS JOURNAL

by Jim Morrison

So much forgotten 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, 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 
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