Tag: Addiction

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Poof* Take MY water

https://youtu.be/eg2Kw1jIXOw

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baseball writing belief bibliophilia books cemeteries Christmas civility confections corsets crime criminal behavior dance destruction deviance divinity fairy tales film food fucking funerals Hell history holidays horror human behavior humor iconography poetry pop culture punk reading

shock jock

there are times

i feel like the only person alive

who feels that

one Bukowski

was enough

Categories
activism Americana art death destruction deviance health Hell history Ohio poetry society sociology sociopathology Southern Living waste writing

across the ohio

when the oxycodone and meth crops fail in kentucky

the country folk flock

across the ohio river into cincinnati

to go to the open air opioid market

people once came to the queen city from the south

to get factory jobs that no longer exist

they were called briar hoppers

we don’t have a name for these new immigrants

other than marginalized, homeless, inmate, and DOA’s

but they’re good at making change

a five dollar bill on the streets of this town

will turn into a baggy of heroin

faster than it will turn

to singles

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Uncategorized

Over-The-Rhine

a 90 degree afternoon
in late September
leaves boiling off tree limbs
heat swirling billows
of sewer gas necrotic
urine stench blossoming
beneath the grimy crosswalk
underground rivers
of darkened discontent
glassy eyed hatred reflecting
off police car windows
drunken ballerina delirium
magic is dead beneath a tree
in Piatt Park
homeless
helpless
heroin limping
passed children unaware
their poverty is generational
a better life is four tax brackets away
no, son, no…
there is no god
in Over-The-Rhine
today

Categories
poetry

lamentation

the greatest sorrow

of a daughter

is surely

the madness

of her father

Categories
human behavior literature sociology writing

AA meetings aren’t for people who need them, they’re for people who want them

he showed up drunk

at 59 years old

.

to pick me up

from the hospital

with another gallon

of wild turkey tossed in the back seat

he had bought

along with

fetid red Marlboros

on the five mile way

.

at that moment

i was no longer certain

who had run out of excuses

him

or me

.

as

i have much more

to lose

than two units

of blood

Categories
activism art books childhood cinema comedy crime domestic violence ecology education film happiness history Jazz journalism Kentucky Music nature non-fiction physics poetry publishing punk religion rituals Short Stories sociology the arts traditions Uncategorized Urban Legends war writing

the year i carried a copy of ferlinghetti’s book poetry as insurgent art like a pentecostal carries and twists their bible

i
i saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
thoughts of kissing me
sleep on disreputable futons
show up at hotel room doors
unexpectedly
.

just about the time
one of my gods said
i was coming close to my
howl
.

but i’m nowhere in proximity
.
upping the ante is perhaps required
my addictions too mitigated by motherhood
and the yolk of practicality
.

i’m not lesbian enough
i’m not disenfranchised
i’ve never been to france
i’ve never given anyone a hand job for a grant
ted hughes has not yet abandoned me
.

Categories
Jazz Music poetry Short Stories Uncategorized Urban Legends writing

fleeting comforts

he would see to it
i had what i needed
when i got to california
no matter where the gig
whatever i wanted
he was my prince
bodyguard
dealer
lover
muse
and champion

he knew exactly how to balance me
drunk and in heels
on his hip
arm around my waist
sweeping me away gracefully
at the end of a night
when the mariachi band had begun to spin
around my head

no matter what we were pulling off
we were better at it together

he’d throw three large on the table
see to it i had my purse
schmooze the goodbyes
play us off as ricky and lucy
through sobriety checkpoints lights
get me back to my hotel bed safe
unmolested (if i so desired)
tucked in

i miss him on nights
temporary highs
and fleeting comforts
would be enough

Categories
Jazz Music poetry Short Stories Uncategorized Urban Legends writing

a few tired souls hunched over

monday mornings
are the silence
of alcoholic fathers

Categories
Jazz Music poetry Short Stories Uncategorized Urban Legends writing

SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY

february 2cd

(cue booming hollow sports announcer voice)

super bowl SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY

ground hog day
on which
punxsutawney phil saw his fictitious shadow
in the epicenter
of manufactured battles
man vs. weather
man vs. processed cheese polymer
man vs. traumatic brain and spinal cord injury

my war
is that my personal health is at a tipping point
the choices i make now
will determine the length of my life
and my overall wellness

2014 must be the year i stop
abusing myself
with smoke
with drink
with bad jobs
with bad men

my sons are 18 now
i choose to see them live as flourishing men

i want to put my best face forward
for the coming apocalypse

this leaves me with only one drug

words

my sword dipped in ink

in the contest between good and evil
good wins

know why?
books
kisses from children
and puppies

but even they won’t stop the earth
from feeling the need to
cure itself of us

we are coming to our unpollinated end

so all you lesser demons can fuck off