Wilderness

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Wilderness the first volume of Jim's poetry published after his death....any good or complete toss!!
Any of you leather pants lovers got a view?



DRY WATER

The velvet fur of religion
The polish of knife handle & coin
The universe of organic gears
or microscope mechanical
embryo metal doll
The night is a steel machine
grinding its slow stained wheels
The brain is filled w/ clocks, & drills
& water down drains
Knife­handle, thick blood
like the coin & cloth
they rub & the skin they love
to touch

the graveyard, the tombstone,
the gloomstone & runestone
The sand & the moon, mating
deep in the Western night
waiting for the escape
of one of our gang
The hangman's noose is a
silver sluice bait
come­on man
your meat is hanging
on the wing of the raven
man's bird, poet's soul

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
the thin rustle of weeds
the voice comes from faraway
inside, awaiting its birth
in a cool room, on tendril bone
The insane free chummy cackle
of infants in a ballroom, of a
family of friends around
a table, laden w/ feast-food
soft guilty female laughter
the bar­room, the men's room
people assemble to establish
armies & find their foe
& fight


Clustered in watchful terror
by vine-growth, the hollow bush
dry cancerous wells
We awoke before dawn, slipped
into the canyon

Noon schoolyard screamed
w/ play, the lunch hour ending
ropes & balls slapped hard at
cement sand, the female land
was bright, all swelling to degree
most comfortless & guarding

A record noise shot out
& stunned the earth. The music
had been bolted w/ new sound.
Run, run the end of repose
an anthem has churned
the bad guys are winning.


Silver shaken in the gloom
I left her

Trees waste & sway forever

Marble porch & sylvan frieze
Down on her knees

She begs the spider­king to wed her
Slides into bed

He turns her over

There is a leather pouch
that's full of silver

It spills like water

She left
And took the coins I gave her


As to the drowning man
hoarse whisper
invokes, on the edge,
an arroyo
Sangre de Christo

Violence in a time of plenty

There is one deaf witness
on the bank, the shore
leaning in finery against
a ruined wall
as Jesus did. Red livid lips,
pale flesh withdrawn from
ragged dress, pit of the past
& screens unveiled in the
scarred chalk wall

When, often, one is not deluged
by rain, 3 drops suffice
The war is over there
I am neither doctor nor saint
Christ or soldier
Now, friends, don't look at me
sadly ranting like some
incomprehensible child
I know by my breath of what
I speak, & what I've seen
needs telling.

Please, freeze!
Danger near.
A message has started its path
to the heart of the brain
A thin signal is on its way
An arrow of hope, predicting rain
A death-rod bearing pain


I

I will not come again
I will not come again
into the swirl
The bitter wine-soaked
stallion eats the seed,
all labor is a lie;
no vice is kindled in
these loins to melt
or vie w/ any strong
particulating smile.
Leave sundry stones alive.


II

Now that you have gone
all alone
the desert to explore
& left me here alone

the calmness of the town
where a girl in black
gets in a car
& searches numbly
for her keys;

Now that you have gone
or strayed away

I sit, & listen to the hiss
of traffic & invoke
into this burned & gutted
room some ghost, some
vague resemblance of a time

Off­on, on and off,
like one long sick
electric dream.
This state is confused
state. Out there her life
like warm connectors,
plug into her soul
From every side & melt
her form for me.

But I deserve this,
Greatest cannibal of all.
Some tired future.
Let me sleep.
Get on w/ the disease.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

"In that year there was
an intense visitation
of energy.
I left school & went down
to the beach to live.
I slept on a roof
At night the moon became
a woman's face.
I met the Spirit of Music."




Jim's view from Dennis Jacob's rooftop.....


An appearance of the devil
on a Venice canal.
Running, I saw a Satan
or Satyr, moving beside
me, a fleshy shadow
of my secret mind. Running,
Knowing.


The day I left the beach

A hairy Satyr running
behind & a little to the
right.

In the holy solipsism
of the young

Now I can't walk thru a city
street w/out eying each
single pedestrian. I feel
their vibes thru my
skin, the hair on my neck
-it rises.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

The walls screamed poetry disease & sex
an inner whine like a mad machine
dropped in a
cave of roaches
or rodents

The Computer
faces of the men

The wall collage
reading matter

The Traders (dealers)






I received an Aztec wall
of vision
& dissolved my room in
sweet derision
Closed my eyes, prepared to go
A gentle wind inform'd me so
And bathed my skin in ether glow



Actors must make us think
they're real
Our friends must not
make us think we're acting

They are, though, in slow
Time

My wild words
slip into fusion
& risk losing
the solid ground

So stranger, get
wilder still

Probe the Highlands


Poem in presentation case.





I am troubled
Immeasurably
By your eyes

I am struck
By the feather
of your soft
Reply

The sound of glass
Speaks quick
Disdain

And conceals
What your eyes fight
To explain

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

been reading this a bit lately and I think there is some bloody good stuff here...definitely the best of the Morrison work in print!
Wonder when we will see Volume III of the Lost Writings?



The Fear

Eternal consciousness
in the Void
(makes trial & jail seem almost
friendly)

a Kiss in the Storm

(Madman at the wheel
gun at the neck
space populous & arching
coolly)

A barn
a cabin attic

Your own face
stationary
in the mirrored window

fear of restroom’s
Tragic cold
neon

I’m freezing

animals
dead

white wings of
rabbits

grey velvet deer

The Canyon

The car a craft
in wretched
SPACE

Sudden movements

& your past
to warm you
in Spiritless
Night

The Lonely HWY
Cold hiker

Afraid of Wolves
& his own
Shadow
~~~

The Wolf,
who lives under the rock
has invited me
to drink of his cool
Water.
Not to splash or bathe
But leave the sun
& know the dead desert
night
& the cold men
who play there.
~~~

a ha
Come on, now
luring the Traveller
Mighty Voyager
Curious, into its dark womb
The graves grinning
Indians of night
The eyes of night
Westward luring
into the brothel, into the blood bath
into the Dream
The dark Dream of conquest
& Voyage
into night, Westward into Night

[ensenada]

i havnt read this yet, its on my list. but what i have read here, its bloody good....my kinda thing. and his written poetry about the aztec stuff even seems to have a small drawing if a pyramid with all seeing eye! had jim read about the illuminati?

[wyldlizardqueen]

Yeah, i think it is some awesome!!stuff!!

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Ensenada said:

i havnt read this yet, its on my list. but what i have read here, its bloody good....my kinda thing. and his written poetry about the aztec stuff even seems to have a small drawing if a pyramid with all seeing eye! had jim read about the illuminati?

According to David Icke and his mad mates he WAS one!

[jym]

Surprised they haven't added Morrisons name to the list of Grand Masters of the Priory of Scion & put him in the DaVinci Code!

[ensenada]

did david icke actaully say jim was one?
he would obvioulsy be the king! that guy needs a slap! as for the priory of scion...i can see jim strapped into his harnesses spanking himself with a whip lol no really i can!

[mywildlove4371]

I love the aztec wall of vision and troubled immeasurably. they caught my eye the first time I ever read the book back in the 90's.

[lawless]

The poetry of 'Wilderness' begins, proper, with 'Poems 1966-1971'.

The first title is 'The Opening of the Trunk' which could stand only for the first short poem, or as a loose title for the first seven poems.

The 'Trunk' could be, prosaically, where the poet keeps his notebooks when travelling [this poet has always been a nomad - the son of a navy man, travelling from base to base ['to come of age in a dry place'] - a student, and now a musician, travelling from town to town from country to country.

But the poem makes of the trunk a metaphor - one is reminded of the Old English phrase 'word-hoard', meaning poetry, used I think, in Beowulf. The term is used by Saxonists to mean 'lexicon', i.e., the poet's personal vocabulary.

So we begin with the notion that the poet is setting out his 'word-hoard', literally or metaphorically.

The first poem runs thus;

-Moment of inner freedom
when the mind is opened & the
infinite universe revealed
& the soul is left to wander
dazed & confus'd searching
here & there for teachers & friends.

Morrison goes further and extends the trunk metaphor; the trunk is likened to the 'mind' [compare 'The Universal Mind', with its line 'suitcase and a song'].

Opening up one's mind - with poetry, knowledge [and one would have to add, mind-expanding narcotics] is compared to that sudden opening of a trunk, where, like Pandora's Box, something new and strange rushes out into the cold air of normalcy.

Looking at that first poem, a single stanza, more closely, we notice the phrase "dazed & confus'd" - is it too fanciful to think that this is an allusion to the Led Zep song of the same name which was premiered in the late 60s by the 'New Yardbirds' as they metamorphosed into Led Zep? We can imagine that had the poet heard that song, he would have liked it [he did mention somewhere that he was 'listening to some new English bands'].

No matter - a key word in this stanza is "soul". In ancient Greece the soul was said to leave the body in the form of a serpent - a myth which has resonance with the poet's other work, such as 'The Celebration of the Lizard', of course.
Generally, the soul is depicted as a bird taking flight, and so is released - just as if it were in a trunk which is suddenly opened, allowing it to escape.
This soul is nomadic, like the poet ["wander"].

So I see in this poem a yearning for freedom; even more a yearning for what the poet calls "the infinite universe". Straightway we recall Blake's [to paraphrase] 'doors of perception' being 'cleansed' so that man can see things as they are ... 'infinite'.

But that freedom is found only in interiority - the "inner freedom" as the poet calls it; a freedom mitigated by a 'searching'.

Beware though, that freedom is *fleeting* for it is a "moment" [see also Nietzsche's use of this term 'Moment' in his theory of the Eternal Return in his 'Thus Spake Zarathustra'; Nietzsche's work was admired by the poet].

This opening of the trunk, or opening of consciousness, is a fleeting revelation - ["revealed"]. And it carries with it a sense of disappointment, as it leaves one "dazed and confused", rather than enlightened.

Why? - Because ultimately, at the stage when one is first opening the trunk, one needs "teacher and friends".

Lesson - as much as one wants freedom and the infinite, one still needs guidance and community at first.

This is a true beginning poem - the start of a long spiritual journey.

How apt that it should 'open' the collection called 'Wilderness'.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

L'AMERICA

Clothed in sunlight
restled in waiting
dying of fever

Changed shapes of an empire
Starling invaders
Vast promissory notes of joy

Wanton, willful & passive
Married to doubt
Clothed in great warring monuments
of glory

How it has changed you
How slowly estranged you
Solely arranged you

Beg you for mercy



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Crossraods
a place where ghosts
reside to whisper into
the ears of travellers &
interest them in their fate

Hitchhiker drinks:
"I call again on the dark
hidden gods of blood"

-Why do you call us?
You know our price. It
never changes. Death of
you will give you life
& free you from a vile
fate. But it is getting late.

-If I could see you again
& talk w/ you, & walk a
short while in your company,
& drink the heady brew
of your conversations,
I thought

-to rescue a soul already
ruined. To achieve respite.
To plunder green gold
on a pirate raid & bring
to camp the glory of old.

-As the capesman faces
poisoned horns & drinks
red victory; the soldier,
too, w/ his trophy, a
pierced helmet; & the
ledge-walker shuddering
his way into inward grace

-(laughter) Well, then. Would
you mock yourself?

-No.

-Soon our voices must become
one, or one must leave.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Forest strong sandals
burnt geometry fingers
around a fire
reading history in blackened
books, charcoal silence
in moot splendor

Flame-tree
Sire, we met in Eden
The troubled time
we had
rustling in the night leaves
a sniper aimed at our window
a kitten mewing in the blasted
strong air
I must go see

-You've found your Voice,
friend, after all else
I recognize fast the
Strong sure tones of
a poet
was it a question
Search or of strangling?
I wonder
We never talked
But welcome here
to the camp fire
Share our meal
w/ us
& tell us of your life
& the hanging

-Well 1st I screamed
& I was a child again alive
Then nothing til the age
of 5

& then summers & the racetrack
I looked for a girl in
New Mexican
bars
& found jail
The prostitute looked out
her cell & saw
Fuck god scratched
on a leprous wall

-You're rambling boy
what of the rest
the jazz highway
he winks.

-I got picked up
& rode through the night

-did you see any buildings

-did I...
What was I doing
of course we danced plenty
She had nice sides
the cop hit me
Stop, I don't remember

-The logs are melting
we must move on
The fire's ending
we'll hear more
at the next altar

[musical interlude]

Trees
Train-death
The American Night
We went through 5 cords
of wood this winter

-he told me beautiful stories
& had the most beautiful visions
He was a truly religious man
at the end

-you know, I like you guys
god-damn!

(I saw this cat run out
of the ocean, one night,
and beat-off into a fire)

I'm going down to Mexico
To this border town I heard
about & I'm gonna buy
me a girl & bring her
back up here & marry her, it's
true. This guy told me.
A friend of his knew someone who

-You're too much
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

open

The Night is young
& full of rest
I can't describe
the way she's dress'd
She'll pander to some strange
requests
Anything that you suggest
Anything to please her guest


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SIRENS

Midnight
criminal metabolism of guilt forest
Rattlesnakes whistles catcalls

Remove me from this hall of mirrors
This filthy glass

Are you her
Do you look like that
How could you be when
no one ever could

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Poet of the call-girl storm

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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I dropped by to see you
late last night
But you were out
like a light
Your head was on the floor
& rats played pool w/ your eyes

Death is a good disguise
for late at night

Wrapping all its games in its calm garden

But what happens
when the guests return
& all unmask
& you are asked
to leave
for want of a smile

I'll still take you then
But I'm your friend


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ODE
NEW YORK MAIDENS


everyone has Their own magic

There is no death

so nothing matters

High Style

Flash & forgive me

high button shoes

clean arrangement

messy breeding

love's triumph

everlasting hope & fulfillment

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE AMERICAN NIGHT

for leather accrues
The miracle of the streets
The scents & somgs &
pollens of existence

Shiny blackness
so totally naked she was
Totally un-hung-up

We looked around
lights now on
To see our fellow travellers

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

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



Sirens
Water
Rain & Thunder
Jet from the base
Hot searing insect cry
The frogs & crickets
Doors open & close
The smash of glass
The Soft Parade
An accident
Rustle of silk, nylon
Watering the dry grass
Fire
Bells
Rattlesnake, whistles, castanets
Lawn mower
Good Humor man
Skates & wagons
Bikes

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

The Endless quest a vigil
of watchtowers and fortresses
against the sea and time.
Have they won? Perhaps.
They still stand and in
their silent rooms still wander
the souls of the dead.
who keep their watch on the living.
Soon enough we shall join them.
Soon enough we shall walk
the walls of time. We shall
miss nothing
except each other.



I get my best ideas when the
telephone rings & rings. It’s no fun
To feel like a fool-when your
baby’s gone. A new ax to my head:
Possession. I create my own sword
of Damascus. I’ve done nothing w/time.
A little tot prancing the boards playing
w/Revolution. When out there the
World awaits & abounds w/heavy gangs
of murderers & real madmen. Hanging
from windows as if to say: I’m bold-
do you love me? Just for tonight.
A One Night Stand. A dog howls & whines
at the glass sliding door (why can’t I
be in there?) A cat yowls. A car engine
revs & races against the grain- dry
rasping carbon protest. I put the book
down- & begin my own book.
Love for the fat girl.
When will SHE get here?

------------------------------------------------------------

In the gloom
In the shady living room
where we lived & died
& laughed & cried
& the pride of our relationship
took hold that summer
What a trip
To hold your hand
& tell the cops
you’re not 16
no runaway
The wino left a little in
the old blue desert
bottle
Cattle skulls
the cliche of rats
who skim the trees
in search of fat
Hip children invade the grounds
& sleep in the wet grass
’til the dogs rush out
I’m going South!

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

This poem was believed to have been written for Deanna Michaelson who spent some time with Jim during his Miami trial days and whose story was exclusively featured in my old Scorpywag Doors fanzine. Check out link below for the article she wrote.

24 Hours For Magic’ By Deanna Michaelson

Miami

What can I read her
What can I read her
on a Sunday Morning

What can I do that will
somehow reach her
on a Sunday Morning

I’ll read her the news of
The Indian Wars

Full of criss-cavalry, blood
& gore

Stories to tame & charm
& more

On a Sunday Morning
-----------
Some wild fires
Searchout
a dry quiet kiss on leaving

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

IN THIS DIM CAVE

In this dim cave
we can go no further
Here money is key
to smooth age. Horses,
givers of guilt. Great
bags of gold.

I want obedience!

We examine this ancient
& insane theatre, obscene
like luxuriant churches
altars.

I confess
to scarves
cool floors
stroked curtain

The actors are twice-blessed
before us. This is
too serious & severe.

Great mystery!
Timeless passion
patterned in stillness.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Slightly different version to the one printed in Wilderness.




Where are my dreamers
Today & Tonight.
Where are my dancers
leaping madly
whirling & screaming
Where are my women
my women
quietly dreaming
caught like angels
on the dark porch
of a ranch

dance dance dance dance angels
angels dance dance dance



Same poem in presentation case.

[helenclare]

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

nice addition to the thread HC!