What makes you think a
Writer isn’t a Drug Salesman?²
We have Drugs for stilling Pain,
For inducing Sleep, for begetting beautiful
Dreams, Lively Spirits and the passion of Love:³
Fetch your drugs, art of Poetry, that make
Us unaware—for a while—of the Wound.⁴
We hide hind a Puff of Smoke.⁵
We art faint at Soul—and we cannot find
The Drugs required to Save ourselves—⁶
We inhale Clouds that promise a more
Thorough Oblivion than mere death.⁷
Look—if we could
Bear Sobriety, we’d be sober.⁸
We stick a Needle in the arm and
Seek an Out in other worldly dreams.⁹
Every addiction starts with Pain—
And ends with Pain—¹⁰
¹ Neil Young, Alabama
² Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle
³ Hermann Hesse tr. Basil Creighton, Steppenwolf
⁴ C.P. Cavafy tr. Rae Dalven, Melancholy of Jason
⁵ Alice Walker, The Color Purple
⁶ Aeschylus tr. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Prometheus Bound
⁷ Ann Lauterbach, Il Pleut
⁸ Donika Kelly, Out West
⁹ Langston Hughes, Junior Addict
¹⁰ Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now