Jim Morrison – “An American Prayer”

March 22, 2009 at 6:20 pm (Jim Morrison, Poetry & Literature)

AWAKE GHOST SONG
Is everybody in? Is everybody in? Is everybody in? The ceremony is about to begin.

WAKE UP!
You can’t remember where it was had this dream stopped?

AWAKE
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day’s divinity
First thing you see.
A vast radiant beach in a cool jeweled moon
Couples naked race down by it’s quiet side
And we laugh like soft, mad children
Smug in the wooly cotton brains of infancy
The music and voices are all around us. Choose they croon the Ancient Ones. The time has come again. Choose now, they croon. Beneath the moon Beside an ancient lake. Enter again the sweet forest. Enter the hot dream Come with us. Everything is broken up and dances.

DAWN’S HIGHWAY
Indians scattered on dawn’s highway bleeding. Ghosts crowd the young child’s fragile eggshell mind.

Me and my ‑ah‑ mother and father ‑ and a grandmother and a grandfather ‑ were driving through the desert, at dawn, and a truck load of Indian workers had either hit another car, or just ‑ I don’t know what happened ‑ but there were Indians scattered all over the highway, bleeding to death.

So the car pulls up and stops. That was the first time I tasted fear. I musta’ been about four ‑ like a child is like a flower, his head is just floating in the breeze, man. The reaction I get now thinking about it, looking back ‑ is that the souls of the ghosts of those dead Indians …maybe one or two of ’em…were just running around freaking out, and just leaped into my soul. And they’re still in there.

Indians scattered on dawn’s highway bleeding. Ghosts crowd the young child’s fragile eggshell mind.

Blood in the streets in the town of New Haven. Blood stains the roofs and the palm trees of Venice. Blood in my love in the terrible summer. Bloody red sun of Phantastic L.A.

Blood screams her brain as they chop off her fingers. Blood will be born in the birth if a nation. Blood is the rose of mysterious union. Blood on the rise, it’s following me.

Indian, Indian what did you die for? Indian says, nothing at all.

NEWBORN AWAKENING
Gently they stir, gently rise. The dead are newborn awakening. With ravaged limbs and wet souls. Gently they sigh in rapt funeral amazement Who called these dead to dance? Was it the young woman learning to play the ghost song on her baby grand? Was it the wilderness children? Was it the ghost god himself, stuttering, cheering, chatting blindly? I called you up to anoint the earth. I called you to announce sadness falling like burned skin. I called you to wish you well
To glory in self like a new monster And now I call you to pray

TO COME OF AGE
A military station in the desert.

Can we resolve the past. Lurking jaws, joints of time? The Base. To come of age in a dry place. Holes and caves.

My friend drove and hour each day from the mountains. The bus gives you a hard‑on with books in your lap. Someone shot the bird in the afternoon dance show. They gave out free records to the best couple. Spades dance best, from the hip.

BLACK POLISHED CHROME (Latino Chrome)
The music was new black polished chrome. And came over the summer like liquid night. The DJ’s took pills to stay awake and play for seven days. They went to the studio. And someone knew him. Someone knew the TV showman.

He came to our homeroom party and played records. And when he left in the hot noon sun and walked to his car. We saw the chooks had written F‑U‑C‑K on his windshield. He wiped it off with a rag and smiling cooly drove away. He’s rich. Got a big car.

My gang will get you. Scenes of rape in the arroyo. Seduction in cars, abandoned buildings. Fights at the food stand. The dust, the shoes. Open shirts and raised collars. Bright sculptured hair.

Hey man, you want girls, pills, grass? C’mon… I show you good time. This place has everything. C’mon… I show you.

ANGELS AND SAILORS
Angels and sailors, rich girls, backyard fences, tents

Dreams watching each other narrowly soft luxuriant cars. Girls in garages, stripped out to get liquor and clothes, half gallons of wine and six‑packs of beer. Jumped, humped, born to suffer made to undress in the wilderness.

I will never treat you mean
Never start no kind of scene
I’ll tell you every place and person that I’ve been.
Always a playground instructor, never a killer
Always a bridesmaid on the verge of fame or over
He manouvered two girls into his hotel room
One a friend, the other, the young one, a newer stranger
Vaguely Mexican or Puerto Rican
Poor boys thighs and buttock scarred by a father’s belt
She’s trying to rie
Story of her boyfriend, of teenage stoned death games
Handsome lad, dead in a car
Confusion
No connections
Come here
I love you
Peace on earth
Will you die for me?
Eat me
This way
The end
I’ll always be true
Never go out, sneaking out on you, babe
If you’ll only show me Far Arden again.
I’m surprised you could get it up. He whips her lightly, sardonically, with belt. Haven’t I been through enough? she asks. Now dressed and leaving. The Spanish girl begins to bleed. She says her period. It’s Catholic heaven. I have an ancient Indian crucifix around my neck. My chest is hard and brown. Lying on stained, wretched sheets with a bleeding virgin. We could plan a murder. Or start a religion.

STONED IMMACULATE
I’ll tell you this… No eternal reward will forgive us now. For wasting the dawn.

Back in those days everything was simpler and more confused. One summer night, going to the pier I ran into two young girls. The blonde one was called Freedom. The dark one, Enterprise. We talked and they told me this story. Now listen to this… I’ll tell you about Texas radio and the big beat. Soft driven, slow and mad. Like some new language. Reaching your head with the cold, sudden fury of a divine messenger
Let me tell you about heartache and the loss of god
Wandering, wandering in hopless night
Out here in the perimeter there are no stars
Out here we is stoned
Immaculate.

THE MOVIE
The movie will begin in five moments
The mindless voice announced
All those unseated will await the next show.
We filed slowly, languidly into the hall
The auditorium was vast and silent
As we seated and were darkened, the voice continued.
The program for this evening is not new
You’ve seen this entertainment through and through
You’ve seen your birth your life and death
you might recall all of the rest
Did you have a good world when you died?
Enough to base a movie on?.

I’m getting out of here Where are you going? To the other side of morning Please don’t chase the clouds, pagodas
Her cunt gripped him like a warm, friendly hand.

It’s alright, all your friends are here. When can I meet them? After you’ve eaten. I’m not hungry. Uh, we meant beaten

Silver stream, silvery scream
Oooooh, impossible concentration.

CURSES, INVOCATION
Curses, Invocations
Weird bate‑headed mongrels
I keep expecting one of you to rise
Large buxom obese queen
Garden hogs and cunt veterans
Quaint cabbage saints
Shit hoarders and individualists
Drag strip officials
Tight tipped losers and
Lustful fuck salesman
My militant dandies
All strange orders of monsters
Hot on the tail of the woodvine
We welcome you to our procession
Here come the Comedians
look at them smile
Watch them dance an Indian mile
Look at them gesture

How aplomb
So to gesture everyone. Words dissemble. Words be quick. Words resemble walking sticks. Plant them they will grow. Watch them waver so I’ll always be a word man. Better then a bird man.

AMERICAN NIGHT
All hail the American night!
What was that? I don’t know Sounds like guns …thunder.

(Roadhouse Blues)

…Alright! Alright! Alright! Hey, listen! Listen! Listen, man! listen, man! I don’t know how many you people believe in astrology…

Yeah, that’s right‑that’s right, baby, L. I am a Sagittarius. The most philosophical of all the signs. But anyway, I don’t believe in it. I think it’s a bunch of bullshit, myself. But I tell you this, man, I tell you this I don’t know what’s gonna happen, man, but I wanna have my kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames
Alright!

THE WORLD ON FIRE
The World on Fire …Taxi from Africa…The Grand Hotel… He was drunk a big party last night back going back in all directions, sleeping these insane hours. I’ll never wake up in a good mood again. I’m sick of these stinky boots.

LAMENT
Lament for my cock
Sore and crucified
I seek to know you
Aquiring soulful wisdom
You can open walls of mystery
Stripshow
How to aquire death in the morning show
TV death which the child absorbs
Deathwell mystery which makes me write
Slow train, the death of my cock gives life
Forgive the poor old people who gave us entry
Taught us god in the child’s prayer in the night
Guitar player
Ancient wise satyr
Sing your ode to my cock
Caress it’s lament
Stiffen and guide us, we frozen
Lost cells
I sacrifice my cock on the alter of silence

THE HITCHHIKER
Thoughts in time and out of season. The Hitchhiker stood by the side of the road. And leveled his thumb in the calm calculus of reason.

Hi. How you doin’? I just got back into town, L.A. I was out in the desert for awhile

“Riders on the storm”
Yeah. In the middle of it
“Riders on the storm”
Right…
“Into this world we’re born”
Hey, listen, man, I really got a problem
“Into this world we’re thrown”
When I was out on the desert, ya know
“Like a dog without a bone. An actor out on loan”
I don’t know how to tell you
“Riders on the storm” but, ah, I killed somebody. “There’s a killer on the road.” No… “His brain is squirming like a toad”
It’s no big deal, ya know
I don’t think anybody will find out about it, but… ” take a long holiday” just, ah…
“Let your children play”

this guy gave me a ride, and ah… “If you give this man a ride” started giving me a lot of trouble. “Sweet family will die” and I just couldn’t take it, ya know. “Killer on the road.” And I wasted him.

Yeah

AN AMERICAN PRAYER/ HOUR FOR MAGIC/ FREEDOM EXISTS/ A FEAST OF FRIENDS
Do you know the warm progress under the stars?
Do you know we exist? filled with green death
(I touched her thigh & death smiled)
We have assembled inside this ancient & insane theatre

To propagate our lust for life & flee the swarming wisdom of the streets. The barns are stormed. The windows kept & only one of all the rest. To dance & save us.

With the divine mockery of words. Music inflames temperament. (When the true King’s murderers are allowed to roam free and 1000 Magicians arise in the land). Where are the feasts we are promised.

Where is the wine. The New Wine (dying on the vine), resident mockery give us an hour for magic. We of the purple glove. We of the starling flight & velvet hour. We of arabic pleasures’s breed. We of sundome & the night. Give us a creed. To believe. A night of lust. Give us trust in The Night. Give of color hundred hues a rich mandala.

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