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.