Here is one of my favorite poems by Jim Morrison of The Doors:
The American Night
for leather accrues The miracle of the streets The scents & smogs & 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
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
She looked so sad in sleep Like a friendly hand just out of reach A candle stranded on a beach While the sun sinks low an H-bomb in reverse
Everything human
is leaving
her face
Soon she will disappear
into the calm
vegetable
morass
Stay!
My Wild Love!
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!
I am beginning to realize that what I admire most about the essays of Joan Didion is that they do not take a stand. They present both A and Not-A, B and Not-B, and C and Not-C. Take, for instance, the title essay in The White Album. There is a constant feeling of dread, yet Joan never takes the easy way out. Here, for example, she writes about Huey Newton of the Black Panthers:
I am telling you neither that Huey Newton killed John Frey nor that Huey Newton did not kill John Frey, for in the context of revolutionary politics Huey Newtons guilt or innocence was irrelevant. I am telling you only How Huey Newton happened to be in the Alameda County Jail, and why rallies were held in his name, demonstrations organized whenever he appeared in court.
There is also a description of a 1968 recording session by The Doors at which Jim Morrison was not initially present. When he arrived wearing his tight black vinyl pants, the scene was a discombobulated one:
The curious aspect of Morrison’s arrival was this: no one acknowledged it. Robby Krieger continued working out a guitar passage. John Densmore tuned his drums. Manzarek sat at the control console and twirled a corkscrew and let a girl rub his shoulders. The girl did not look at Morrison, although he was in her direct line of sight. An hour or so passed, and still no one had spoken to Morrison.
Didion does not say that Morrison was an inconsiderate dick: She presents the scene and lets you draw your own conclusions. Particularly revealing is a quote from a psychiatric evaluation of Didion in Santa Monica after she reported “an attack of vertigo, nausea, and a feeling that she was going to pass out.” The evaluation concluded:
Patient’s thematic productions on the Thematic Apperception Test emphasize her fundamentally pessimistic, fatalistic, and depressive view of the world around her. It is as though she feels deeply that all human effort is foredoomed to failure, a conviction which seems to push her further into a dependent, passive withdrawal. In her view she lives in a world of people moved by strange, conflicted, poorly comprehended, and, above all, devious motivations which commit them inevitably to conflict and failure….
In her place, we might all be tempted to put our thumbs on the scale, to introduce our own prejudices and draw a conclusion which may be no closer to the truth, but mainly revealing of our own misperceptions. I do find it odd that she would quote a lengthy psychiatric diagnosis of her sense of dread near the beginning of the essay, or anywhere within it for that matter.
We know him from The Doors, but he was also a decent poet. He had to be, particularly considering his original songs, particularly in his group’s initial album, The Doors (1967). I am not that much into rock music, but I did take the trouble to visit Jim Morrison’s grave at Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris after he died of a drug overdose.
Here is one of my favorites among his poems:
The Celebration of the Lizard
Lions in the street & roaming Dogs in heat, rabid, foaming A beast caged in the heart of a city
The body of his mother Rotting in the summer ground. He fled the town.
He went down South And crossed the border Left the chaos & disorder Back there Over his shoulder.
One morning he awoke in a green hotel W/a strange creature groaning beside him. Sweat oozed from its shiny skin.
Is everybody in? The ceremony is about to begin.
Wake up! You can’t remember where it was. Had this dream stopped? The snake was pale gold glazed & shrunken. We were afraid to touch it. The sheets were hot dead prisons. And she was beside me, old, She’s, no; young. Her dark red hair. The white soft skin. Now, run to the mirror in the bathroom, Look! She’s coming in here. I can’t live thru each slow century of her moving. I let my cheek slide down The cool smooth tile Feel the good cold stinging blood. The smooth hissing snakes of rain…
Once I had a little game
I liked to crawl back in my brain
I think you know the game I mean
I mean the game called “Go Insane”
Now you should try this little game
Just close your eyes forget your name
forget the world, forget the people
and we'll erect a different steeple.
This little game is fun to do.
Just close your eyes, no way to lose
And I'm right here, I'm going too
Release control, we're breaking through
Way back deep into the brain Way back past the realm of pain Back where there’s never any rain
And the rain falls gently on the town And over the heads of all of us
And in the labyrinth of streams beneath Quiet unearthly presence of Nervous hill dwellers in the gentle hills around Reptiles abounding Fossils, caves, cool air heights
Each house repeats a mold Windows rolled A beast car locked in against morning All now sleeping Rugs silent, mirrors vacant Dust blind under the beds of lawful couples Wound in sheets And daughters, smug with semen Eyes in their nipples
Wait! There’s been a slaughter here
Don’t stop to speak or look around Your gloves and fan are on the ground We’re getting out of town We’re going on the run And you’re the one I want to come!
Not to touch the earth, not to see the sun
Nothing left to do but run, run, run
Let's run, let's run
House upon the hill, moon is lying still
Shadows of the trees witnessing the wild breeze
Come on, baby, run with me
Let's run
Run with me, run with me, run with me
Let's run
The mansion is warm at the top of the hill
Rich are the rooms and the comforts there
Red are the arms of luxuriant chairs
And you won't know a thing till you get inside
Dead president's corpse in the driver's car
The engine runs on glue and tar
Come on along, not going very far
To the east to meet the Czar
Run with me, run with me, run with me
Let's run
Some outlaws live by the side of a lake
The minister's daughter's in love with the snake
Who lives in a well by the side of the road
Wake up, girl! We're almost home
Sun, sun, sun
Burn, burn, burn
Moon, moon, moon
I will get you soon...soon...soon!
I am the Lizard King
I can do anything
We came down the rivers and highways We came down from forests and falls We came down from Carson and Springfield We came down from Phoenix enthralled
And I can tell you the names of the kingdom I can tell you the things that you know Listening for a fistful of silence Climbing valleys into the shade ~~~
For seven years I dwelt in the loose palace of exile Playing strange games with the girls of the island Now I have come again to the land of the fair And the strong and the wise
Brothers and sisters of the pale forest Children of night Who among you will run with the hunt?
Now night arrives with her purple legion Retire now to your tents and to your dreams Tomorrow we enter the town of my birth I want to be ready
Tarnmoor 
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