You sit in the evening,
Alone in bed with
An oxycodone hangover,
And you ask yourself just what
Is it that you think you were doing?
And all that comes to mind
Is simply, “…did it for the buzz.”
But now you’re feeling sick like
When you used to drink all the time,
Day and night, drinking until you
Passed out, and getting fatter and
Getting dumber by the bottle.
And now it’s the little white pills
In the little brown bottles
Because you don’t do coke anymore
And your fiancée doesn’t want you
To drink anymore, so the little
White pills, almost socially acceptable,
Sit in their hiding place waiting
To be swallowed.
Bangin’ de drum, brotha
Jus’ bangin’ de drum
An’ singin’ de song and bangin’ some mo’
Jus’ bangin’ de drum, brotha.
An’ nothin’ mo’.
And the oleandors, the spades of maccadamus,
the shrine of purple sage and the lavender crystal ale
all combine into globules of incoherency
and spasms of color, and then separate;
and you realize that all are merely
the things of the
imagination.
Sit back and relax and
Think, think, think back in time
When you were a child, whose hand
Was held by his mother and who
Was being lead, over boardwalk,
Through crowds of people half naked,
Past booths of colors and sounds and
Smells, glorious smells,
And the smell of tar and salt
The smell of food, frying food,
And pizza and clams and
Hot sausage sandwiches…
The smell of coconut scented
Lotions and creams
To thwart the Sun’s fury
And the sound of spinning wheels of chance
And the heat from the wood beneath
Your bare, naked, virgin little feet and then,
The unholy splinter!
Your mother, aunt, uncle, cousin
All trying desperately to dig it from your
Foot, as you screamed and cried and tossed
About unwilling to endure
There was one with tweezers, another with
Cigarette in mouth and a buck knife in hand
Another holding the foot, one holding
Down your face, trying to keep you
From moving, from crying, and all you
Can hear is the worried speculation
Of the onlookers and the seagulls diving
Towards people holding pizza and corn
And hot dogs.
And you hear, somewhere that someone
Is a winner, and you could
Be one too, so
“step right up and give the wheel a spin!”
And all for a pack of smokes or a little stuffed
Thing or perhaps a mirror or even a
Cheap electric guitar signed by someone
You don’t know.
Oh the rain comes beating down, slowly at first
Outside your window you hear it slapping against
The asphalt and the hood of your car and the leaves
And the roof and the banister of the stairs leading
Towards your tiny deck and it’s dark and cool outside,
A moist coolness, almost a little sticky but still
Refreshing and it’s difficult to believe that it’s almost
June and you wonder if it will give up and get warmer
So that this summer will be a summer to remember.
The old man tired and sitting with crossed legs
No shoes
Sitting beside the dirt path
Charming the rattle snake
Charming the weasels and the rats
Charming the cactus and the wild grass
Charming the little people in his head
Charming the long brittle gray hair of his beard
Charming his shrunken cock
Charming his worn out t-shirt, and his dirty duffle bag
And the lumps beneath the skin on his face
And the tumors on his back and his chest,
Hidden still by the cloth of his dirty shirt
And the old man looks up to god and to
The buzzards circling above and holds out
The scepter he’d been carrying for millennia
And finally it was over, he’d reached nirvana
He’d reached the end of the road and he lay
His head down and died right there.