Jims Green Songbook & Paris Journal

[jimsbabe]

I am in awe of the revelations in these notes, i have cried and cried for this tormented soul, who just wanted to be himself in this LIFE, words cannot express the deep soul wretching that has overcome me in the last few months of reading and revisiting the doors and Jim's life, I was but a little girl when jim was a teen, I grew up listening to him and never stopeed I have always felt a connection to the person but years later to the soul of this man, thank you for all the great work here on this site true and dedicated to the real stuff that makes this world wonderful and mysterious, blessed be all who have contributed to this posting site, may jim smile from his post at your dedication and understanding

[sage]

Yes, I am in agreement with everyone else. I was extremely thankful to come across this forum with these wonderful postings. It's not everyday that you get a chance to read new poetry from Jim. But I do have just one question......does anyone know if these poems will ever get published world wide? I'm sure that many people would love to have their own copy of these amazing words from such an enigmatic man.

[jym]

Wilderness & The American Night, as well as The Lords & The New Creatures have all been published.

Just in case you visit again

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

#118

blood is seal in it’s redness
The rainbow is seal in
absence of blood


The comic strip minus captions
a paper blowing in a street
a foreign movie
take a walk down the long
canal

Invention of the Kingdom
City of Gold

Platforms, galleries
ministers, snakes
miserable captains
ancient searching
numbers---------- sinks
stones, stalwart friends
children’s clown houses


waiting
for the sand storm of
straight junk jewels

#119

Are you Jewish?
----- He’s head goes down
The horse swims


Transmigration of souls
it’s easy, in a few hundred years it’s all over
like the woman who forgets
the pain of childbirth



dance wicked ministers
assault yourself w/ tongues


Brothel chatter
whore’s piano

want the suddenness of
a deep dream
want waking to slide into sleep
The nightmare that groans
greater
Stronger in the sudden night


There is no love & no
Language. The mute
dreams of sudden ghosts


are you trying to shock
us w/ your trauma

p120

Sudden attack
Stabbed & hacked but no
pain no death

Zone of silence
Sudden powered
mute strangeness
& awareness
most awkward to the mind
alive w/ love & laughter
& memory sweet of kinder
times
when we spoke & words
had soft form by
a fire




Page #121

Christmas towers
The elephant farts & I
fall on my arch-type
This is no time for sense
of humor
Mother's got a tumor
It's only a little rumor
now
but wait until summer
Almost, but not quite
enough to put one
on a bummer
Stuck my thumb in
pulled out a sewer
sore loser

The whale is nothing
on the beach
cut the heart out
fry it, eat it

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Page #122 of Paris Journal.


I'll give you a hint
I've got a little gold
bracelet w/ wooden shoes
on it
I was only 11 years old at
the time
2 cases of scotch
They found him on the floor
Class people
I know
I wanna know the name of it
What does it look like?



as dark as she was dawn


Leave the <Please do not
disturb> out



#123

moving into The new house
and construct my kingdom
out of the 1st dry leaf
of morning, and out of
The odor of the burning log,
& the boat which the young
husband poles solemnly
his young wife cradling
The infant in here arms
on the floor of the boat
as they cross a weird
channel after the war


A man rakes leaves into
a heap in his yard, a pile,
& leans on his rake &
burns them utterly.
The fragrance fills the forest
children pause & heed the
smell, which will become
nostalgia in several years

an appearance of the devil on
a Venice canal. Running,
I saw a Satan or Satyr, moving
beside me, a color’d fleshy
shadow of my secret mind.
Running, Knowing, not knowing
crying

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Page #114

What do you w/a
dead man's things?

I'd hate to think I
ever made a girl cry

Snake in a shoe-box
beautiful rattler
Older boys cabin
We'll all go down in history

Screen Test

I like this bit. Good question for his band mates and all the rest of us who worship at this particular altar.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

#124

A long & greasy look like
The country he claimed
& married 1st
Americus
land of dream-death
desire
holding sway over many
voyages


(“don’t come down here, baby
these fools are shooting people” )

I could trace the smell
of gun fire on the phone
you were my partner



moods beneath, & weathers
that were measured
in her death
& slow & time-filled
fallen sparrows
sad arrows
our sorrow

Branch out into the
history of the vine
This is my last time
round this old vale


#125

They left a dead babe on the Queen’s
doorstep



argue w/ breath
mice
while I cry
Midnight


it must come
like dream
sperm
uncalled
From the center
Borderlands


it must come
unbidden
like the dawn
soft haste
no hurry
hairs curl


The phone rings


We create
the dawn



#126

cats on drugs, w/ silky
ambient hair
& eyes



This is the room
where all things
lie


They don’t like beasts
in the leaves
The world outside


& people move slyly
Thru dark bright
Towers


An ocean admits us



Bitten dreams
don’t argue w/ the moon


breasts beasts floors
& flowers must be
scrubbed clean


For the cunt to lie on


Then we lie upon her
& go rigid
& formless
into
linoleum


#127

Moon car


a small room
like an opium bed

a fictive brothel


showers, bathrooms
Towels, & mirrors


He pays an ancient oriental
& quickly enters


ah! crash
wandering in the fast noon
an old bronze hand


The sun guns of Rome


gracious as ghosts
The sea insects

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

#128

This is my forest
a sea of wines
This gaggle of vision
is my flame
These trees are men
The engineers
And a tribe of farmers
on their Sunday off


Gods --- the directors
Camera’s, greek
Centaurs on the boom,
sliding w/ silent
mobile grace

Toward me-
a leaping clown
In the great suns
Eye

Grand dangers there
in curved thigh
The avenging fingers-
lord


P# 129

Dancing & thrashing
the reptile summer
They'll be here long
before we're gone
Sunning themselves
on the marble porch
Raging w/in against
the slow heat
Of an invaded Town

The Kingdom is ours


Awake in a noon of tender flesh
Can I come inside you?
May I come in you?
How did this happen?
I’ve been so used to other girls,

you came home in that black car
yes black, & met me,
you came home late

How can this be? I ask,
I remember well & now you say
I threw silver metal dust

Are these beings? yes,
How many? why we don’t know.
A strong man should be aware.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

#130

Who knows what animal
loves you while you dream?

My hell will be your hell
My earth, your earth
My heaven, yours too

The enlightened child struggles
to be born

How easilywe are taught to obey
Doomed to wander in charmed circles

Beggar fish & suppliant mouse.
Is man wrong to have left the rivers?

Memories are knots of growth & desire

Power = delight in being.

#131

Come
for all the world lies
hushed & fallen
green ships dangle
on the surface of
Ocean, & sky birds
glide smugly among
The planes
Gaunt crippled houses
strangle the cliffs
In the East, in the cities
a hum of life starting
now come

"Oh God", she cried
"I never knew what
it meant to be real.
I thought it was all
a joke, a jewel.
I never let the hours
The sweetness, or dignity
in."

"Let me up to see the window.
Dark riders approach in the sunset.
Coming back from raiding parties.
The taverns will be full of laughter,
wine, and later dancing. later,
dangerous knife throws

(over)

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

#132

"Antonio will be there, & that
whore, Blue lady, playing
cards w/ silver decks &
smiling at the night. And
full glasses held up high &
spilled to the moon."

"I'm sad, so full of sadness."

all children mercifully flown
back to the beautiful cave.
The cult of progress.

mystery and fertility
a god in the dark night
a stranger

a nude lies in a lighted doorway
on a pile of old money & papers
a lamp like a lance

We were murderers
We drove to the city
To try our weapons

#133

pigs are beasts
cows are noble flowers

you're treading in dangerous
territory
Don't do it! Stop him!
Make him stop!

Leaving the train. Troops & whores
& common people. return to the girl.

In a giant crowd. Young girls race.
The Queen's Grand Tour. Lake.
Sailboats moored.

Leaving the nightclub. Two beg
for bread.

The Wind.


Poet of the call-girl storm.

She left a note on the bedroom door.
"If I'm out, bring me To"

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

A lot of this stuff looks like Jim rambling on while possibly drunk.
I am well aware the guy was smart and used words very well but much of this stuff is pretty banal and this is probably why he gets such a bad rap.
Of course we have no clue what this was meant to be.
Some of the words feature arrows changing their position so obviously he was working on this as he went.

Does this make him less of a poet?
Of course not.
I am sure that many so called famous poets wrote stuff like this.
We generally only see the finished product and don't get to see all the stuff famous poet X or Y wrote that was Godawful.
All Poets write tripe.
Jim was no different.
he wrote some good stuff and some awful stuff.
This Paris Journal is a mixed bag.
It has some interesting prose as well as a lot that looks pretty childish.
It would be nice for someone who is well versed in poetry (pardon the pun) to comment on Jim's writings here.
There are a few more pages yet and I will finish it off in the next couple of weeks.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

#134

You had to know
you had to find out didn't you

The living will soon outnumber
the legions of the dead

"David escaped to the cave
of Adullam. His father &
his brothers came to him
there. Also, every troubled
discontented, or indebted
young man in Israel became
part of his outlaw band.
He thius became the leader
of about 400 men."

Sweet ebulliant fools

ugly arms of the Albatross

I want to get my hands
into The Mts again
That's a forest, probably
2 miles from there to there
my grandpa used to go
fishing there

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

This page is a good example of what I meant in Reply #33.

The living will soon outnumber
the legions of the dead

Jim draws a line through 'will soon' and changes completely the meaning.
he also mentions The Albatross on this page.
If you read the Doug Cameron Interview here you will see Jim mentions it to him. It seems Jim used it to describe the other Doors.

ugly arms of the Albatross

Interview with Doug Cameron Author of Inside The Fire – My Strange Days With The Doors

Now we know Jim left the band before he came to France and we now know they forced a change to their agreement with regards the band name as they did not trust him.
Perhaps it is a reference to the band.
Who will ever know

### The Cave of Adullam was originally a stronghold referred to in the Old Testament, near the town of Adullam, in which David, already anointed to succeed Saul as king, sought refuge from him. The word "cave" is usually used but "fortress", which has a similar appearance in writing, is used as well. Given that this was a bandits' hideout, it would be reasonable to describe this as a fortified cave.

### The term "Cave of Adullam" is often used by political commentators referring to any small group remote from power but planning to return. The cave is the source of the term Adullamites, which is used generally to refer to groups of political outsiders plotting their comeback or the overthrow of the status quo, especially after recent defeat.

### Sounds like The Doors

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

So much forgotten already
So much forgotten
So much to forget
Jim Morrison PARIS JOURNAL


It is interesting to wonder when in Paris where Jim liked to hang out and write in his notebooks.
The DCM will be holding their usual Jim Morrison Walking Tour so anyone who likes that sort of thing might want to get in touch with Kerry Humphrey's on his DCM site.


Ray Manzarek was disgruntled, but he didn't show it "Go on, Jim. Stay in Paris as long as you want. We'll go on working on the mixing of L.A. Woman", he had said to Morrison, when the latter had broken the news about his plans to leave Los Angeles, right in the middle of the final mixing of the new Doors album. This was at the beginning of February 1971.
The Doors were in the studio, together with Bruce Botnick, sound technician from Elektra Records, mixing the individual tracks on the 8-track machine for the next album. Jim, who since the Soft Parade album had not much cared for mixing anyway, would rather hang out in his favorite bar, or go fishing with his drinking buddy Babe Hill.

He was bored with life in Los Angeles though, and the memory of his first visit to Paris in 1970 had possibly given rise to his emphasizing, weeks before leaving, that he needed a few months rest in order to write new poems and he thought Paris might well be the perfect place.
He mentioned that he wanted to buy an old church in the south of France, do it up and live in it, his own permanent island of peace.

Pamela was enthusiastic about the idea. Jim had told her much about Paris, and she was aching to live in this enchanted, far-away, romantic city, and this was a good chance of course to get Jim away from The Doors and have him all to herself.
"The man is a poet", she insisted, "he shouldn't be wasting his time with a rock band!"
The Doors knew Pamela's views of course, and were naturally not of the same opinion. They didn't appreciate Pamela's presence at the Doors office very much, either.
Jim Morrison's Quiet Days In Paris by Rainer Moddemann

Of course Moddermann was in awe of The Doors then and the tale is contaminated with their viewpoint.
Jim was more likely done with The Doors for good not a few months rest.
It's unfair on Pamela as well. She had plenty of faults not least she was a junkie but she proved her worth after Jim's death when she stopped the other three selling LMF again.
So it was more likely Jim was in Paris to try to write get rid of the booze habit and think about what he was gonna doa fter The Doors.
We know he was writing as the Paris Journal is proof along with other pages and notebooks seen in auction most likely stolen by Jim's so calle Paris pals after they found out he was dead and would not be back for stuff he left in their care whilst drunk.
He was reportedly doing a screenplay as he had hopes of getting in touch with film people in Paris.
Possibly even a memoir on Miami. Maybe even his own story of The Doors.
Now would that not have been something.

We know he visited Pere Lachaise, how many times we do not know and Place des Vosges was near his flat and a perfect place to get away and write.

He probably wrote in bars and in the flat itself.
How much he wrote is difficult to say as he brought a lot of stuff with him. He wanted to get people interested in HWY and he had his poetry tape from 1969 with him and likely the reels from 1970 as well.

So much of the Paris time is lost in the stories of those he met in Paris who look for attention with grand tales of drinking and drugs.
It seems that the Poet was lost in Paris in the summer of 1971.
No matter where he went Jim Morrison could never escape Jim Morrison.
Sad really !

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

#135

The hair I buy you is alive
Bury me w/ rythm if I die

It must have been a big day when
the first African decided to leave
home base for Europe instead of
India

The swing wind hushing
Red lights blue lights
lights of the city

all the monstrous
apologies
worlds forsaken or
forgotten
loose walls falling
Tumbling downinto
night. Fast friends,
earthly lovers, crash.
Sweet sorrow, blackness
falling, 50ft rivers
of guilt on the
spilled roadside. Down
into fine, cry
down into silence

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

This is an interesting one.
Morrison starts to write
someone is coming to do you ill
but changes his mind and turns it into do you in

There seems to be some bitterness in Jim's writings whilst in Europe and this is understandable because of the way his time with The Doors ended.
Perhaps this is another of the many references to his fellow Doors he makes in both song and writing from the end of 1968 onwards.
The evidence for the parting of the ways between Jim and The Doors after 1968 is overwhelming and their final betrayal just before he left for Paris must have been a very bitter pill to swallow considering the loyalty he showed them over the years.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

#136

The night of the abortion she
dreamed of a blood-red sea
of embryos, crying to her

yesterday the burned
the schoolyard
tore down the flag & ruined
the lawn

calm electric crackle
crackle-choir-T.V. fine

fawns fled her arms
He woke her

Translations of the divine
in all languages. The Blues
The records get you high,
in armies, on swift channels
The new dreamer will sing
to the mind w/ thoughts
unclutched by speech
Pirate mind stations. Las Vegas T.V.
midnite showings



Again we see how he changes the emphasis of what he wrote at the stroke of a pen.
She woke up
becomes He woke her

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

There is no doubt that a good proportion of Paris Journal is rambling tripe.
Some of it would embarrass a schoolkid.
Morrison seemed to be getting fits of melancholia and was obviously depressed as well as bitter regarding The Doors, which was understandable considering the treachery of his three band mates, and sought solace in drink.
We know this from those who met him in Paris.

Some of this reminds me of John Doe (Kevin Spacey) in the film Seven spewing out rambling thoughts about nothing in particular.

This is not a criticism as such as I am sure many poets did similar things before collating their work into a form that warranted attention. What we are left with is raw Morrison sitting down throwing well thought out as well as random thoughts onto a page.

From this volume we can get a sense of the mood of the Poet in his last weeks.

The Doors had left a scar on his demeanour.
The way it had ended on both a high and a low.
The LAW album would receive warm appreciation even if it did not put the band back on 1967 proportions it was a triumph simply by the fact it even existed.
But his leaving and the reaction of his band mates must have been awkward for him.
Basically being accused of being untrustworthy by a bunch of back stabbing former friends would surely have hurt.
Considering the loyalty he had shown the band in his time with them.

He had come to Europe to find something new for himself but his past was always present.

Escaping his self made image was always his biggest challenge and this surely is reflected in the pages of his Paris notebooks.

What he could have made of them if given a chance to edit and reflect on what he had written we can only guess.

There is some of his written work that borders on, if not actually is, profound. Morrison had a gift with words.

Many argue that to release material such as this is wrong as it is not finished. But it is exactly that rawness which sometimes resonates with the reader.
It is a question that will always cause fans division.
Sadly it is all we have to go on.
This Paris Notebook whether it was bequeathed or simply stolen is a rare glimpse into the mind of the Poet Morrison.
It is not always easy reading and sometimes the reader may squirm at the banality of some of it. But it has some stunning moments as well.
Morrison was by no means a great Poet but he did have a spark of greatness that given time might have produced something that would have been remembered for millenia.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

#137



The American Night

a monument to death, dream
sleep, & dankness. Bloody
sad erotic mystery

Why does the Negro own the night?

all things fall together
Hiroshima. Boat trip
to the cave of bones

I will laugh! said the cow.

Christmas is a season when
the weight of the world falls
like snow. Kites in a field
A burst plane in the Texas night

Too many cars & damaged freeways.
Highways of the mind.
The sweetness of a music kiss.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

#138

Homebase
wilderness round-up
Insanity sweepstakes
The Race Track

I think I was once
I think we were

your milk is my wine,
my silk is your shine

slight vacuous change
from Their Television
Universe
Weekly dose
white tantalizing view

Movie Queen
peppermint downer
prickly pear
Grand piano

Main Street
Broadway
Bright Hurray
magnificent.

#139

green bottle, o bottle green
release your secrets slowly

I am more than results
madame, I am Bourbon

They need a lot of music
to atone for their sins
against the great gods
of disorder

Plug your soul into the wetern night

stoop for that gree, you lusty you

Something to bow down to. But no
a dialog is a dance
change partners
change faces
your position rests on poetry

How lucky we are