An Apology to The Doors

Whenever The Doors
were going to perform
in the New York area,
me and the other stooges
I hung out with
always planned to buy tickets
We lived on Long Island,
Ticketron was in Macy’s
at The Walt Whitman Mall
just a ten minute drive
from our neighborhood
We’d start drinking,
Ripple Red, smoking joints,
getting totally fucked up
Never making it
to Ticketron
Those Door tickets
sold faster
than a launched Apollo rocket
Three times we repeated
these antics, missing:
Ray, moving his head,
back and forth
to the sounds of his organ
John, behind his drums,
carefully picking out beats
on those skins and cymbals
Robby, looking serious and bemused
as he rocked out
Some of the best guitar
of the late 60s
Jim, Shaman dancing, singing,
reciting his poetry Yeah, we missed,
The Doors live
because we’d get fucked up
on Ripple Red and joints
Well, it was a sign
of the times
Somehow I just feel
a need to apologize,
to The Doors…