I watched how you smiled through the cocaine
for at least a few minutes or so
and heard you curse out at the morning
as its light stuck its pins into you.
Laughing out loud in the rushes
but taking you down in the lows
where crystal meth celandine crushes
your wonderment into your woes.
How you cracked and you choked and you snorted
like a porcelain pig sty on fire
with the promise of death ever thwarted
by the kites that kept flying you higher.
Caught your face standing out in the stained glass
shattered shapes fell like fire cracker stars
backlit by another day’s sunrise
that you’d bought from an acid bazaar.
And you saw the whole world turn Picasso
in a riot of cubism shapes
distorted confusions of conflict
in a mindscape of murders and rapes.
And your Lithium lover went lifeless,
when his bipolar bare needed ice
but his friends had all melted to puddles
though the puddles kept paying the price
for the head fixture missing the fittings
near the fingernail tracks on the wall
where mescaline years become crack smoker’s fears
that consume and inherit fuck all.
You swear that your skunk smells like roses
as psychotic distortion kicks in
and the mindless mêlée decomposes
to the bones that lie naked within
and I know that you’ll rise in the morning
with a yesterday look on your face
never heeding lost history’s warning
or the tracks of my tear-stained embrace.
So, go tell it to Sid and to Nancy
to Hendrix and Tim Buckley too
to Keith Moon, Gram Parsons and Elvis
how they’d all take the piss out of you
yes, they’ll all take the piss out of you.
A contest entry
- ANYTHING GOES! BIG POINTS! ;) by Mila7.
1522 points, ended August 23, 2008, 11 entries
Bronze trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - Blow me away by LaLaLie.
1144 points, ended September 8, 2008, 17 entries
Silver trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Comments
1 - 22 of 22
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Love this, read like lyrics felt like it needed music and that i wanted to hear it played...could be a societal anthemic track.Awesome
C
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Wow
I absolutly loved, I read it a few times and it stuck everytime. I like how I cna relate to it becuase of my brother. I really love hte imagery,wording, and content, overall Fantastic Bravo,
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Amazing poem. Nothing much to comment as I got to read it for the second time. By chance I was again caught by the title in the featured columns to click it. Enjoyed it again as well. Keep the good work. Good luck for the contest.
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I really like how strongly your message gets across.
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wow, this is pretty awesome and powerful, not to mention extremely well written. Nice work!
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Raw and filled with mind blown imagery, especially like the 5th stanza about Picasso plus the phrase "inherit fuck all." Keep on penning Poet, you have a flair for the gritty reality.
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Congratulations on this Emerald Dog!!
You truly deserved the silver with this work! Sad problem with the drug problem. Amazing what you can do with poetry and express yourself! THANKS MY FRIEND!!
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thank you very much... this is what I've tried to tell her.
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Thank you so much for awarding me bronze in your contest. I hope with all my heart that you can help your friend turn her life around. Thank you once again. Love & Peace, Kezz.
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thank you very much, I hope it happens to work.
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Amazing
A wonderful write. Full of wit and sarcasm. A nice potrayel of the life of an addict. Well done. Best wishes for the contest.
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interesting
This is quite a mixed poem - the rhythm and rhyme is light and energetic, yet the message is deep and hurrtful. I don;'t understand all the durg imagery bewcause i have never experienced this drug, but it's good that you try to show it.
best wishes,
Myron. -
Wow! How many drugs does it take to write a winner. This was great, certainly the center of a tootsie pop. Excellent flow and youthful whimsy. If not I think it's time to go sober
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Very true indeed
I often see those today and I whisper within my mind is today a day for real for them or just a clip out of time .Lost eyes show no feelings and carry a walk of the dead and I cry for they chose to walk in hell when they could have heaven instead
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Whoa!!! The diction, imagery/metaphor, rhyme and rhytm on this is superb. This really hits hard! Wow can you write!
Two things: the first stanza struck me as a bit weak, compared to the strength in the rhyme, spit it out diction, alliteration and metaphor.
Also "day’ sunrise" should it be "day’s sunrise"?
Among the "highs" for me:
"How you cracked and you choked and you snorted
like a porcelain pig sty on fire
with the promise of death ever thwarted
by the kites that kept flying you higher."
Lithium is a bipolar med. One wouldn't take that to "get high? I think the nature of Bipolar disorder leads one to addiction or multiple addictions. Which comes first, the disorder or the addiction, or perhaps childhood trauma?
I think one could argue any of the three, though I would say that it runs in families and looks as though it may be triggered by childhood sexual abuse or other trauma.
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Thank you FBM for this detailed comment. By way of explanation, Stanza 1 is how it happened (see my comment at foot of page - I was surprised that it struck you "as a bit weak"). Nevermind. The missing 's' is added - thanks for spotting!. Re Lithium - your choice from: two songs by 2 bands (Nirvana and Evanescence), hugely poular with the 'type' this is aimed at - and of course a drug used in the treatment of bipolar disorder and psychosis - which can often be drug induced. L&P, K.
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wow, this is really deep! I really liked this! I believe that you really took your time on this! I like your vocabulary, i didn't know all of these words! really good stuff! i like the mention of those celebrities at the end. Great poem! Loved it! lolz! =D
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Love it... in fact, you gave me some more words to add to the word bank.
It was exquisite and brilliant in every way possible. The flawless rhyme and rhythm, the intense imagery and tone, but most of all, the fascinating diction .... you pulled out all the stops, didn't you?
I have to wonder about the inspiration for this. Obviously this is geared a little more towards the drug-addict theme than the strictly "bipolar" theme - but I know that most people who are bipolar are also drug addicts. Could it be that you are related to one? Or that you fell in love with one?
I thought the last stanza and that last repeated line were particularly interesting. Your choices of people to list, especially. I know Elvis was an alcoholic. Hendrix obviously did drugs. What are the other connections there?
I do hope you can come up with something else for my contest. If not... this one is so great, I'll consider allowing pre-writes. But do try your best, as I'd prefer something fresh.
You should consider listening to Shinedown's "The Sound of Madness" ... I think you'd relate.
Great work, as always. And yet again you leave me wondering why I don't check out your page every single day.
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Hi Allie - greetings from late at night UK. Thanks so much - you blew me away with your review! You also asked me some Q's - the background for this is now explained in response to an earlier comment. All of the people listed died drug related deaths - Sid Vicious (Sex Pistols) and girlfirend Nancy Spungen were both heavy smack users and he killed her then killed himself, Keith Moon (The Who) Gram Parsons (The Byrds) and Tim Buckley all died of drug overdoses, Jimi H choked on his own vomit whilst unconscious through drink and barbiturates and Elvis was a big-time pill popper whose heart gave in the day after he had received a massive quantity of 'prescribed' pills. Thanks again, and if I can find some time this week I'll try to write something for your contest.
L & P, K x
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Another BRAVO
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WOW
What a write!!! So much wisdom in your words full of metaphoric play. I had to read twice...or three times to take it all in. Did you write this for someone or from experience?
And your lithium lover went lifeless,
when his bipolar bare needed ice
but his friends had all melted to puddles
though the puddles kept paying the price
for the head fixture missing the fittings
near the fingernail tracks on the wall
where mescaline years become crack smoker’s fears
that consume and inherit fuck all.Very clever language...I applaude you.
Nevadapoet
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Well first of all thank you for coming back and for these incredible comments. I’ve been struggling for reads for some weeks now and suddenly it seems like it’s my turn! As for this poem, there’s a few years of observation in there that’s for sure – but I suppose this grew out of a conversation that I earwigged whilst camping out at a major music festival in the UK a couple of months back. It was about 4.30am when some youths returned from their partying to sit in the porch of their tent about a yard away from mine – where I was trying to sleep. They were maybe 16 to 18 years old and fully off their faces. They swapped jibbering stories about all the pills and powders they’d managed to do that weekend (and we are talking pharmaceutical quantities here) as though this was some kind of campaign and were making pledges to tick a few more heavies off from their lists. I have known a fair few youths like that down the years, through friends or life in general, and many ended up trashing their lives or are plain gone now. I’m not anti-drug per se, but without some degree of maturity, kids at this age just don’t (or refuse to) recognise the dangers in these ‘games’ and some will die for nothing. I thought that they may be shocked back to sense via a mocking from some dead hero's though. That’s basically what got this poem started and from there other characters and experiences were drawn in.
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