Paris Journal

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

Tell them you came & saw
& look'd into my eyes
& saw the shadow
of the guard receding
Thoughts in time
& out of season
The Hitchiker stood
by the side of the road
& levelled his thumb
in the calm calculus
of reason.