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Everyone I know is on drugs;
mommies on Prozac or Zoloft,
daddies on Crestor or Lipitor,
kids taking THC-laced gummies,
and Molly.
The cable news shows have
commercials for Wegovy and Ozempic
for diabetes - all the rage
for weight loss too.
I'm not sure how anyone got by
before pills.
I’ve heard Elvis came back
from Germany
addicted to amphetamines.
I’ve heard Leonard Cohen
was five years in silence
on Mt. Baldy
before he could sing again.
Whatever happened to the drunkard
singing a sour tune,
railing at the half moon,
talking up women in the saloon,
fists swinging,
face planting in concrete,
bloodied and stinking
of piss
as cars speed by?
Whatever happened to
work the next day
with a good old fashioned hangover?
A man falling from the roof
of a tall building
drops more slowly
than you might think
looking up from the street.
4 comments:
Sad commentary on our society if all around us people of all ages are pill--popping. Is it really so? There was certainly more “romance” in the drunk with the hangover. I find the last stanza curious: what is the connexion between the slowly-falling man and the writer? Shuddering ending to a disquieting poem.
I'm not sure there is a connection between the 'slowly-falling man' (as you put it, I like that) and the writer. Although one time I heard the writer WO Mitchell talk about the writing as a type of free-falling, which I think is apt. In the sense that when you write (fiction) you have to allow your imagination take you to where it wants to take you. But I was actually thinking of something more tragic.
Who's on drugs? The man committing suicide? or the man watching him (in "slo-mo")? or both? I'm interested in what prompted this poem. (Anything to do with the killing of the drug company CEO?) It's not something I have any expertise at all about, but it seems to be that the drug culture has been around forever ... is it really any worse now than it was in the past? Dealing with reality has always been a difficult task for most people, throughout history, all over the world ... and drugs and alcohol have always been the go-to choices for numbing the pain. And people have always looked for the "miracle pill" to solve their problems, whether it be weight-loss or erectile dysfunction or whatever. I'm not convinced that things are worse now than they have been in the past ... but, admittedly, I am not involved with the crowd or the culture that knows from such things. (Thankfully!)
The murder of the insurance company CEO hadn't occurred to me, at least not consciously, but subconsciously, it probably was part of it. But also all the talk about fentanyl, trump's ludicrous tariffs, and the fact that my doctor just upped my dose of blood pressure medication LOL. As with all creative writing a gumbo of ingredients floating around in my head. Also, last weekend I had a great jam session, and had a bit too much to drink. The feeling of freedom that comes with playing music with a head buzz is unmatchable. The last line is directly lifted from something I heard Bukowski say in an interview. He was sitting in a park sipping from a cheap bottle of wine when a man jumped off the roof of a building in front of him. Suicide happens more slowly than we think.
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