Closing the Doors - an Ode to Jim Morrison

On the anniversary of the celebrated rock star's death (7/3/71) a poem about waking up from the rock star spell and embracing my own identity

Once upon a time
I thought I was one
of your beautiful
faraway friends, 
but as you softly
crooned The End, 
I knew it was just
a rock star fantasy
my youth could 
no longer suspend.
You were already 
setting me free,
knowing—even then—
I could never follow
your burning star
to its tragic end.

It was fun for a while 
to imitate you in a poor 
kid’s half-assed way:
Tight jeans (not leather)
suede boots, long wavy hair
blowing in the sun;
velour shirt and a 
shaman’s grace to round 
off my rebellious air.

And while you were
doing time in the
Universal Mind, 
setting people free, 
(waking every morning 
to grab yourself a beer)
I was doing time in
the working class slums
of Lorel avenue, yearning
to sun, moon and stars:
“Get me outta here!”

If Hollywood 
ever made a movie  
about my frustrated youth 
and mystical ambitions,
it would be called:
I was a teenage shaman.

As my path led down
high school’s halls, 
which echoed with 
mockery and threats, 
I found a poetry book:
America: A Prophecy
and tucked it under my arm, 
tasting a drop of freedom 
instead of those teenage
nervous sweats.

At times I would
sing like Jim, or play
the Farfisa like Ray;
my mercurial mind
couldn’t decide
between 
the highway 
at the end of the night
or 
waiting for the sun
to light another day.

While you wondering
what they were doing 
in the Hyacinth House,
still in search of that
brand-new friend,
I thought at times
I could’ve been the friend 
who would have saved you
in the end;
but
it was 
far too late—
you had already
passed through the gate.

And 
when you 
growled in Changeling, 
“gonna see me change,” 
I knew it was a private message 
to your brand new friend; 
and though I never lived
uptown, downtown or
all around (I lived on 
Lorel avenue, after all!),
I took your growl as my howl
to warn my parents, siblings,
and stale old friends, that
I was getting tired of
hanging around in a world 
that found me strange, 
where no one remembered
my name.

And once I realized 
your mind was filled 
with angels and demons,
wrestling in desolation theater,
laughing at the havoc your
drunken antics wreaked,
I couldn’t pass myself off
as an existential cheater,
in a place I didn’t belong.
Thanks to The Doors
you opened, I’ve sneaked 
into those haunted rooms,
a rhinestone-studded flunky 
chasing the screaming butterflies
of your tortured poet’s song.

And once I learned
you bought a subscription
to the writings of The Beast 
(which you didn’t cancel, 
but perhaps, in the end, 
cancelled you), how its
dark magic drained
bodies and souls of 
their precious light,
I could never partake 
in that unholy feast.

And once you gave
up acid for booze, 
replacing
one addiction with another,
you wound up singing the
burnt-out rock star blues,
killing off your Father
and making it with 
your Mother.

And although
you were always
obsessed with death—
I hopped aboard that
mystery train for a while—
because I wanted to end
my miserable teenage life,
I went instead to the land
of shamrocks, leprechauns,
and fairy tales, to exchange
marriage vows with my wife.

That was the path
I chose, building a life 
I hoped wasn’t hollow, 
all the while looking for
the light, guided every
morning by Apollo.

After so many nights
of trying to die 
(O nice us),
your arrow—shaped
like the Eiffel Tower—
finally struck the Paris 
night of July 3, 1971;
a prophecy fulfilled
on a drunken whim,
triple play, hat trick,
Jimi, Janis, Jim…

And when you “died” 
I was just 10 years old,
laughing hysterically 
in my backyard while
a transistor radio wailed
how your brain was
squirming like a toad.

And when Manzarek
broke on through to the
other side—much to my
surprise—with an organ’s
roar into the sky like Apollo
13 (your last album cover),
into the clouds of Mount 
Olympus, my youth and
its organ playing ambitions
burst into flames and fell 
to earth just like Icarus.

What I could never 
understand, for all the acid 
trips that buzzed your brain, 
that dazed your eyes, for all
the poetry you consumed—
Rimbaud, Apollinaire, the Beats—
where was your Drunken Boat?
your Vintage Month? your Howl?
You could’ve easily captured
the spirit of the 60s with that
liquid fire; but instead 
writhed in miasmic squalor, 
a shaman prowling through 
the night’s psychedelic slums.

Perhaps at some point
--while you were 
telling all the people—
your spirit whispered: 
Hey kid, you don’t need 
to follow me down;
just be yourself, 
instead of acting like
some Dionysian clown.

And I’m still here on
planet Earth, an unknown
soldier, slightly out of
step in the soft parade of 
commuters, my office job, 
streets, shoes and avenues
in the town of Chicago,
the parenthetical morning 
and evening sun in my eyes,
earth led on a leash of
sunbeams through the 
galaxy, on a path you’ve
already seen, of which
these are only its outer
manifestations, a path
that led me to what
I am today…

Although I probably 
didn’t have the right stuff 
to be your brand new friend,
you gave me its greatest gifts: 
poetry, music, all the other arts;
and the joys of being moved along
with millions of other hearts.

Now that your music’s over
I’m turning out those lights,
and The Doors I used to
sneak through are closing by
themselves like in those silly ghost
movies of Abbot and Costello’s
It first feels kind of eerie,
but it’s not that at all…
new doors are opening, 
through which the rising
star of my future shines.