You flip through Doors albums
like flipping through photos
in your wallet,
as if the Doors were your brothers.
You remember our lyrics
better than any teacher's
advice.
Give me a break.
You talk as if we shared
the same jail cell together,
or at least the same
womb. You're part of the blur
in back of the Fillmore,
San Francisco, 1967 you write.
Oh yeah now I remember
you.
Fame. I don't need it.
A spotlight is a trap.
No one can come in.
Fame is walking through
a crowd of assassins.
Fame is getting someone
to listen to your proposal
for a film project
when otherwise
he wouldn't know you
from the bus boy
cleaning off his table.
Fame is not having to buy
your own grass.
It's drinks being shoved
at you as quickly
as papers you haven't
autographed
yet.
Fans, they'd idolize
a junkie, so fogged out
the band's turned
his amplifier off,
as long as his name's famous.
If his name's bloated
and stands out like a vein
on a junkie's arm,
so much the better.
You can have fame.
My fans scuffle here.
They throw empty bottles
as if my grave
was the edge of a highway
in L.A.
They leave garbage behind
as if my grave
were a landfill.
They scrawl graffiti
across my headstone.
Wilde is my neighbor.
His fans stand in the rain
and bring flowers, not empties.
I wanted a vase
as large as a Victrola,
for tall stemmed
Callas. But my fans
would have used it
for a urinal.
Fame. Who needs
it?
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