Origin Stories: Closing the Doors

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Here’s another in a series of my Origin Stories about a poem I wrote a long time ago, sometime around the anniversary of Jim Morrison’s death. It was at a time in my life where I reflected back on my Doors mania as a teenager, then took a hard look at my life and thinking things like, “So this is where I am, who I am, what my life is like, etc. and it has nothing to do with The Doors.” In case you haven’t read the poem, you can read it here.

Then I started comparing and contrasting everything about the Doors vs. what my life was like, how I really came to learn/understand the kind of person Morrison was and how unlike him I am. A lot of cognitive dissonances were coming to the surface and I guess it was one of those mature moments where I confronted all those rock star illusions, both his and my own.

Following are some quick notes and references within the poem:

“I found a poetry book…” America: a Prophecy – incredible anthology of American poetry I found as a teenager in the library of Weber high school in Chicago (now long gone, thankfully).

https://jacket2.org/commentary/america-prophecy-anthology-collage-dekanawideh-whitman-pound-stein

“I’d play the Farfisa like Ray…” Farfisa VIP 345 combo organ  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Farfisa_VIP_345_MIM_5442.jpg

“I lived on Lorel avenue after all…”

Google’s picture of this street on a sunny day does not do it justice for capturing the working class depression that normally haunts this street. This is a random picture of one of its apartment buildings (similar to what I lived in).

“And once I learned you bought a subscription to the writings of The Beast…”

The “Beast” is infamous occult magician Aleister Crowley.  That’s what he used to call himself, i.e. The Great Beast.  A bust of him is featured on the back of the The Doors 13 album cover.  This kind of creeped me out when I learned of this which suggested there may have been more darkness to Morrison than I naively thought.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley

“After so many nights of trying to die (O nice us),…”

Just a little wordplay for the Greek god Dionysus who’s behavior Morrison sort of styled himself after.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysus

“Where was your Drunken Boat? Your Vintage Month? your Howl?…”

The Drunken Boat (Le Bataue Ivre) is perhaps French poet Arthur Rimbaud’s most famous poem which is about the poet taking sort of a hallucinatory voyage out to sea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Bateau_ivre

Vintage Month (Vendemiare) poem by French poet Guillaume Apollinaire.  One of my favorite poems by Apollinaire about how he’s wandering around Paris one evening by the docks and he has this mystical experience about hearing a song that Paris sings; a song that takes in all the activity of the city, the cities of the world and history such that he gets drunk from “having swallowed the entire universe” in this experience.  He uses the imagery/metaphor of wine, vines, vineyards, etc. to convey all this.  Truly an epic poem.

Howl – signature epic poem of American beat poet Allen Ginsberg that defined the Beat Generation; and if you want to read it…(it’s a long one!)

http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/howl-parts-i-ii

Abbot and Costello…comedy team from the 1940s and 1950s who were popular in films and later in TV shows. They made several silly fun films about their “meeting” with Frankenstein (their most famous one), The Invisible Man and The Mummy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbott_and_Costello

The thing I discovered about myself is that when I recognize greatness in a writer (at that time, rock stars) my tendency is to mimic it in my own way. It also turns me into a culture detective searching as far back to see what inspired them; and this also led me to a realization that I should express myself as naturally as possible and not be a copycat.

I have to say, it was exciting to discover The Doors’ music, to learn what their influences were because those influences opened so many doors in my life, turning me on to things I would have never known; for example poetry, film, musical theater, etc. Although it’s not my nature to imitate Morrison’s personality (my happy marriage wouldn’t have lasted as long as it has), The Doors changed my life, and for that alone, I’ll always be grateful.

Morrison died at only 27 years old, joining that proverbial “27 Club” in the sky, and I’m still here on planet Earth, writing about how The Doors changed my life. How strange life is. And now I’ve reached that time in my life’s journey to be fully myself, and to embark on a new path whatever that looks like. To close some doors and open new ones wherever they may lead.

Thank you kindly for your time, and if you’d like to see more poetic origin stories, please leave a comment below.

All the best,

VP