FAT JIM MORRISON
by Kevin Ridgeway
that’s what he calls me when he ambles
out onto the porch, my cigarette in one
hand, my beard in the other with an entire
galaxy of suicidal flowers hanging from
my shoulders. I growl from a Doors
song, I’ve been down so goddamn long,
five years since I was the perfect age to
die bloated and full of heroin and absinthe
in a Parisian bathtub, my fans and admirers
throwing dirty graveside celebrations that
leave them more wasted than my short
life, but I have instead lingered beyond
such a fantasy with the reality of growing
too old to be a rock star, exhausted by
a career based on amateur theatrics
whose self-destructive choreography
has left the soundtrack to my life at near
bottom of the pop charts. My new front
yard companion slaps my large gut, takes
a sip of his root beer and proceeds to tell
me a long story about how he got so high,
he woke up old with his entire life behind
him in an inglorious fog, all alone with
no memories to wash away the pain of
unwanted survival.
Originally Published in Slipstream
You can also find this poem in my first collection, which can be ordered here:
