28 Addiction poems

The clear orange bottle was empty. It had been empty a day. It suddenly seemed so costly and uncalled for anyway. Two years had passed. They had passed more or less the way years should. Maybe he’d changed. Or maybe the doctors had misunderstood. It was June. The enormous elm tree was green again, and the scent of   hyacinth reached through the window and followed wherever he went. And the sky was the firmament! His life was never better. Each small white spotless cloud that passed was like a long-wished-for letter. But then he remembered his promise. It came like a mild cramp, and it sat there all day in the back of   his mind like a gas bill awaiting a stamp. He saw three faces that Sunday, mother, sister, niece, all with the same kind, brown, scared eyes that brought him no peace. The sidewalk sparrows were peeping. His whole house smelled like a flower. But he remembered his promise. The drugstore said one hour. Back home again, he was tired. The label said caution, said warning. He left the clear orange bottle on the lip of   the sink till morning. The insert said warning, said caution. The insert said constipation. It said insomnia, vivid dreams, and hypersalivation, and increased urination, and a spinning sensation. It also said night sweats, and agranulocytosis, and strongly suggested a full glass of   water be drunk with all doses. The insert said all this, the insert he never read. But he didn’t have to read it to know what it said. The bedroom was calm with moonlight and the breeze through the screen was cooling. Through the elm leaves the shivery light on the wall came like quicksilver pooling. But   just before five, something woke him — a close whisper — or maybe a far cry — and the bedroom was queasy with light the color of   lapis lazuli. He lay there listening hard till six, till seven, till eight    ... At nine he remembered the bottle. But nine, nine was too late. “Don’t take me!” cried the Clozapine. “Don’t take me!” cried the pill. By ten he was feeling restless, with a whole day left to kill. “Don’t take me!” cried the Clozapine. “Yes, don’t!” cried the medication. And the bright yellow morning seemed suddenly edged with a shady fascination. Why should he go to his workplace? Who was his supervisor? He had a sickening feeling that he was becoming wiser. His room filled up with interest. He had begun to think! He thought of the knives in the kitchen and the bottles under the sink. He thought as he switched the stove on or stood at his shaving mirror, or reached for his belt in the wardrobe. Thinking made things clearer. Even the bedroom window, the open window full of sun, continually hinted at something that should be done. But he was crooked and useless. He was a piece of shit. And so, as everyone knew he would, he failed to go through with it. “Don’t take me!” cried the Clozapine. “Don’t take me!” cried the drug. Just then, the telephone rang. Just then, he ripped out the plug. “Don’t take me!” cried the Clozapine. “Don’t take me!” cried the poison. And the door of   the house creaked open, and the cellar door lilted and murmured, and the garden gate groaned and yawned and let a little noise in. There, just outside his window, lurked life like a cheap cartoon. He shut the sash, locked it, and checked it, and checked it all afternoon. He lowered the blinds on that world, no longer an agent of   it, but then, with one finger, pulled down a slat and set his eye above it. At first it was grimly amusing, at last it was grimly grim, to watch all those hunched, hurried people, who made like they weren’t watching him. The neighbors were thinking out loud. They knew he was no fucking good. So he slumped on a stool in the corner like a bad little snaggletooth should. They called him a dirty pig, and laughed, and said he shouldn’t exist. Sometimes they made a tsking sound, or oinked at him, or hissed. They hissed that he was to blame for everything, and everyone knew it, and that if   he weren’t such a pussy he’d know what to do, and he’d do it. He lay on his side on the rug unable to move at all except for his big right toe, which dug and dug at the wall, which dug at the wall, which dug. “Don’t take me!” cried the Clozapine. “Don’t take me!” cried the cure. And they begged him to sew his mouth shut just to make goddamn sure. “Don’t take me!” cried the Clozapine. “Don’t take me!” cried the poison. And the gate to the wicked city gaped, and the gates of the temple screamed and screamed, and the gates of the garden groaned and yawned, and the gates of the ziggurat gabbled in grief, and sucked all life’s sorrows and joys in. His thoughts were advancing like wolves. He lay still for an hour and a half, then reared up onto his rickety legs like a newborn calf. Then     rug hall stairs porch stoop street and the blacktop humanly warm on the soles of   his naked feet. His walk was stiffened by fear, but it took him where he was going, into the terrible world of children and daffodils growing, and friendly people helloing, and the Super out doing the mowing, and the two old sisters out in wool sweaters with their wrinkled cheeks pinkly glowing, and the pretty lady who would give birth by Christmas barely showing but showing, and the policeman helping to keep the lazy afternoon traffic flowing, and time itself slowing, and none of them, none of them knowing that an odious axis was forming, that it would not be controlled, that schemes were afoot, that a foot was a thing for a jackboot to hold, that the street was a movie set, that it was not warm and sunny, that a creditor was calling who could not be paid with money, that the world was like a sliver of   iron held in the hand, and his mind the lodestone above it that made it stir or stand, that the air was slowly changing to a color they didn’t know, that he was a famous doctor on a television show. But what could he do? Even friends would take these facts for lies, and he couldn’t tell who the enemies were, though he felt the hot breath of their eyes, so he kept his big mouth shut and tried to play along, and plowed down the street toward the coffeeshop as if nothing at all were wrong. He tried not to notice the numbers painted on garbage cans. He tried and he tried not to look at the black unmarked sedans. The coffeeshop smelled like coffee, but it felt different inside. A new waitress went by. She winked. He kept his eyes open wide. Everything screamed “Run away!” But he wasn’t really there! So he stood by the gumball machines and smiled and tried not to stare. “The power is yours!” said a T-shirt. “Look for lightning!” reported the weather. And the stranger who offered the Sports section said, “It’s all there, Chief. Just put it together.” Then wild-eyed out of the kitchen stormed a small, hard old man, shouting in a strange language and waving a frying pan, shoving him out the door and into the chattering street, shoving him, waving, shouting, and pointing at his feet, at his bare, gray feet. Then came the dark blue uniform, the badge glinting in the sun, and the belt jangling like a storm trooper’s as the boots broke into a run. “Take that!” cried the patrolman. “Take that!” cried Johnny Law. Street, knee, neck — cuffs, curb, jaw. And the flatfoot pushed him, bleeding, into the sleek cruiser, and he heard all the gawkers thinking that he was a pig and a loser, and his chin throbbed, and the handcuffs ate at his wrist, and he would be hacked into pieces soon and would not be missed. “Don’t take me!” cried the victim. “Don’t take me!” cried the threat. But the angry back of a head was the only response he could get. Lying on his side like a child at the end of a big day, he gazed up through the window and watched it all slip away. The little pen where they put him had a toilet but no stall. Here and there a message scarred the gloss-white wall. Time passed. But you couldn’t tell it on the trapped fly ticking the ceiling, or the flickering light overhead, or the sore on his chin congealing, or on the sound of the other pigs in the other pens, squealing. When the men came, he was ready. He talked. They took it all down. And soon they were back in the cruiser, on their way across town. Then, into the mirrored building, over the waxed lobby floors, down miles of echoing hallways, through the heavy brown doors, into a humming beige room with a bed and a river view, and an outside lock, and jailers who wore white instead of blue. “Take that,” smiled the doctor. “Take that,” smiled the nurse. He pressed his lips still tighter, and things got worse and worse. “Please!” threatened the nurse. “Please!” growled the doctor. He raised his fists to cover his mouth, but the nurse was too close, and he clocked her. Now into the room came the big men, who did not clamor or shout, but pinned him with ease to the bed, strapped him down, and went out. And the doctor was there again, trailing a spider web of cologne, and the doctor told what would happen next, in an expert monotone, and the nurse took a needle and emptied it into his arm, and they both left, content that he could do no more harm, and he fought, and the straps cut his shoulders, and he gnawed at his lip, and it bled, and he held his bladder for three long hours, then shivered and pissed the bed. When the doctor came a fifth time, it was long past dawn. They’d found him a room, said the doctor, gently restraining a yawn. The next two days were sleep, and words through a fine white mist. Then he woke inside a machine whose motion he couldn’t resist: “Tick-tock,” said the clock. “Creak, creak,” said the bed. “Drip, drip,” said the sink. “Throb, throb,” went his head. “Ho-hum,” sighed the night nurse. “Heh-heh,” said the sicko. “Why? Why?” screamed the patient. “Howl, howl!” cried the psycho. “Wolf! Wolf!” cried the boy. “Gobble, gobble!” sang the freaks. “Sa, sa!” cried the king. “Tick-tock,” went the weeks. “Bang, bang,” said the tv. “Teeter-totter,” went his brain. “Click, click,” went the checkers. “Pitter-patter,” went the rain. “Bring-bring,” said the pay phone. “Snip, snip,” went Fate. “Jangle-jingle,” went the keys. “Clank-clink,” went the gate. “Bye-bye,” said the nurse. “Bye-bye,” said the guard. “Bar-bar,” said the doctor. “Baa-baa,” said the lamb. “My, my,” said his mother. “Boohoo!” cried Bo Peep. “Bow-wow,” said the wolf. “Baa-baa,” said the sheep. In the car away from that place, the family had a pleasant chat. He seemed fine again, and humble, though his speech was oddly flat. He said that the halfway house where he would be residing was located on a quiet block and had green vinyl siding. There he met new people and watched the television, which did not watch him back or speak to him with derision, and he performed certain tasks, meant to teach certain skills, and he got small checks from the government to pay his enormous bills. Each night he fell asleep, and each morning he got up, and he washed down his medicine and squashed the paper cup, feeling, in all, much better, more in touch with common sense, and also slightly bored by the lack of consequence. And the church bells rang and a dinner bell tinkled and the school bell tolled and called all the good girls and boys in. And all of them brought all their toys in. And all of them swallowed their poison.

Last summer I found a small box stashed away in my apartment, a box  filled with enough Vicodin to kill me.  I would  have sworn that  I'd  thrown it away years earlier,  but apparently not. I stared at the white pills blankly for a long while, I even took a picture of them,  before  (finally, definitely)  throwing  them away.  I'd been sober  (again)  for  some years  when  I found that box,  but every addict  has  one— a  little  box,  metaphorical  or  actual— hidden away.  Before I flushed them  I held them in my palm,  marveling that  at  some  point in  the  not-so-distant  past it seemed a good idea  to  keep a  stash of  pills on hand.For an emergency, I told myself.  What kind of emergency? What  if  I needed  a root canal on  a  Sunday  night?  This little  box  would  see me through until the   dentist   showed   up  for   work  the  next  morning.  Half  my brain  told  me  that,  while  the other half  knew that  looking into that  box  was  akin  to  seeing  a photograph of myself standing on the  edge of a bridge,  a bridge  in the  familiar  dark neighborhood of  my  mind,   that   comfortable  place   where  I  could  somehow believe that fuck it was an adequate response to life.

listen, a bad thing happened to my friend’s marriage, can’t tell you only can tell my own story which so far isn’t so bad: “Dad” and I stay married. so far. so good. so so. But it felt undoable. This lucky life every day, every day. every, day. (all the poetry books the goddamn same until one guy gets up and stuns the audience.) Joe Wenderoth, not by a long shot sober, says,I promised my wife I wouldn’t fuck anyone

Missionary girl reports that Chinese addicts say your heart begs you to stay away

A night address The world is wasted on you. Show us one clear time beyond childhood (or the bottle) you spent your whole self—hoarding no blood-bank back-up, some future aim to fuel—or let yourself look foolish in reckless style on barstool, backstreet or dancefloor, without a dim image of your hamming hobbling you the whole while. Voyeur to your own couplings, you never did come with them, did you, even when you did? You said Hell is details, when Hell was just the cave, the concave- mirrored skull you dwelt inside, your left hand polishing while the other shook to clinch a deal— Provide, provide! Sure, in the end, like any soul you were endless and yets—brave, deft with phrases, kind— three cheers for you. Too closed to want what others love you vetoed life— were there other worlds to crave?

You had a woodchuck and an opium ball. The one ate through the furniture, the other sat in its cage depressing me. Now the woodchuck sheds its skin. I have a cow behind the Dollar Bin. You shouldn’t drink diarrhea unless you bring enough for everybody. Turn it into a teaching moment. Asian-American Students for Christ have the room until 2:30. Rumi says no donkey is a virgin, no, nor any beast that bites the grass. Maybe it sounds better in Persian. An unseen force propels the carts across the Whole Foods parking lot. The woodchuck hasn’t been born yet I’d rather keep than you as a pet. You’ll sleep on wood shavings, I’ll comb your pelt. That animal loved you, his captor, whom he hated. I know just how he felt.

No surprise. Bills to pay, pain to obliterate, a favor to a friend desperate for more time before facing facts, or a reason less beholden to One-day-at-a-time or I-don’t-know-why or There-is-no-why- I-just-like-getting-high or Then-Jesus-spoke-to-me blather. Nothing’s enough, not even the moments when her voice — any voice, my voice — vanishes into the Voice the hymn wrenches from the throats of the spiritual paupers up there swaying in black satin. The God of the Garden is the God of Chemistry, too, a single sniff in a lifetime proof enough — nothing can slough errands or heartbreak so fast into the metaphysical ditch where all of it belongs. Weren’t we made for better than the Fall, if Fall this is? We all see what the Flood keeps doing. A little while dry, please, a little while with no chattering chimp between the ears & the Wizard once more in Oz. This is my mind, not hers. She’s a story I heard. I’m a story I can’t stop hearing. A plastic tarp in a monsoon may be her future. A plush ride home to havoc. A vision that delivers her from want, deserving or not.

Highlight Actions Enable or disable annotations I He would drink by himself And raise a weathered thumb Towards the high shelf, Calling another rum And blackcurrant, without Having to raise his voice, Or order a quick stout By a lifting of the eyes And a discreet dumb-show Of pulling off the top; At closing time would go In waders and peaked cap Into the showery dark, A dole-kept breadwinner dole-kept breadwinner A person who brings in money through "dole": financial help or welfare from the state. But a natural for work. I loved his whole manner, Sure-footed but too sly, His deadpan sidling sidling Not calling attention to one’s self, unobtrusive tact, His fisherman’s quick eye And turned observant back. Incomprehensible To him, my other life. Sometimes, on the high stool, Too busy with his knife At a tobacco plug tobacco plug “Tobacco pressed into a flat oblong cake or stick” (OED), which needs to be cut up and separated before smoking And not meeting my eye, In the pause after a slug He mentioned poetry. We would be on our own And, always politic And shy of condescension, I would manage by some trick To switch the talk to eels Or lore of the horse and cart Or the Provisionals Provisionals In 1969 the IRA (Irish Republican Army) split into two groups: the “provisionals” and the “officials”: “At the Army Convention of 1969 the militarists broke away over the issue of abstention and formed the provisional IRA, which became the dominant grouping, while the remainder became known as the officials” . But my tentative art His turned back watches too: He was blown to bits Out drinking in a curfew Others obeyed, three nights After they shot dead The thirteen men in Derry. PARAS THIRTEEN, the walls said PARAS THIRTEEN, the walls said, / BOGSIDE NIL “Paras” is short for “Parachute Regiment.” According to A New Dictionary of Irish History from 1800, “On 30 January 1972 thirteen people were shot dead and seventeen injured within thirty minutes by British soldiers of the Parachute Regiment in the Bogside area of Derry” , BOGSIDE NIL PARAS THIRTEEN, the walls said, / BOGSIDE NIL “Paras” is short for “Parachute Regiment.” According to A New Dictionary of Irish History from 1800, “On 30 January 1972 thirteen people were shot dead and seventeen injured within thirty minutes by British soldiers of the Parachute Regiment in the Bogside area of Derry” . That Wednesday Everyone held His breath and trembled. II It was a day of cold Raw silence, wind-blown surplice and soutane surplice and soutane A priest’s garments, the loose vestment (surplice) over the close-fitting one (soutane); by association, a priest : Rained-on, flower-laden Coffin after coffin Seemed to float from the door Of the packed cathedral Like blossoms on slow water. The common funeral Unrolled its swaddling band, Lapping, tightening Till we were braced and bound Like brothers in a ring. But he would not be held At home by his own crowd Whatever threats were phoned, Whatever black flags waved. I see him as he turned In that bombed offending place, Remorse fused with terror In his still knowable face, His cornered outfaced stare Blinding in the flash. He had gone miles away For he drank like a fish Nightly, naturally Swimming towards the lure Of warm lit-up places, The blurred mesh and murmur Drifting among glasses In the gregarious smoke. How culpable was he That last night when he broke Our tribe’s complicity? ‘Now, you’re supposed to be An educated man,’ I hear him say. ‘Puzzle me The right answer to that one.’ III I missed his funeral, Those quiet walkers And sideways talkers Shoaling Shoaling Crowding and moving together as a group, like schools of fish out of his lane To the respectable Purring of the hearse... They move in equal pace With the habitual Slow consolation Of a dawdling engine, The line lifted, hand Over fist, cold sunshine On the water, the land Banked under fog: that morning I was taken in his boat, The Screw purling Screw purling “Screw” is short for “screw propeller;” “purling” describes the motion of the propeller and swirling water , turning Indolent fathoms white, I tasted freedom with him. To get out early, haul Steadily off the bottom, Dispraise Dispraise Opposite of praise, disparage, make little of the catch, and smile As you find a rhythm Working you, slow mile by mile, Into your proper haunt Somewhere, well out, beyond... Dawn-sniffing revenant revenant In Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney, Heaney described a fishing trip with Louis O’Neill and another person using this word: “The shine of morning light on the lough had an otherworldly quality, it reminded me of the dawn scene in Hamlet, when the ghost fades on the crowing of the cock – so in ‘Casualty’ Louis then turns into a ‘dawn-sniffing revenant’” , Plodder Plodder “One who works slowly and laboriously; a persevering toiler, a drudge” (Century Dictionary) through midnight rain, Question me again.

For I have seen love and his face is choice Heart of Hearts, a flesh of pure fire, fusing from the center where all Motion is one. And I have known despair that the Face has ceased to stare at me with the Rose of the world but lies furled in an artificial paradise it is Hell to get into. If I knew you were there I would fall upon my knees and plead to God to deliver you in my arms once again. But it is senseless to try. One can only take means to reduce misery, confuse the sensations so that this Face, what aches in the heart and makes each new start less close to the source of desire, fade from the flesh that fires the night, with dreams and infinite longing.

Bottles on the closet floor, bottles underneath the bed. Of course he thinks he’s caused it all. The hiding places unimaginative, the vodka’s glass sides clear when empty, clear when full, like the cellophane -transparent plastic skin of the model he glued together thirty years ago, The Visible Man, the tiny organs in “authentic colors,” kelly green lungs and scarlet heart. But he’s trying, as they say, to reside in the moment, stuffing the duffel bag to bring her where she’s trembling on the ward, where she’s hating both herself and him, passing four locked doors to reach her, as if each were some frontier checkpoint to a country even farther distant than the one he’s trapped in now. The zebra-striped gate, the guards who hold his documents against the light, peering through the watermarks and faded passport stamps. And he knows his skin is glass, his mission shame, and shame the lingua franca of these lands, the sign language of fingers unzipping compartments with a nylon hiss, to probe her sweaters, jeans, and stockings, (the toothpaste tube uncapped and sniffed) and shame the notebook and the novels he’s brought her, riffled and shut with a strange and final delicacy, and shame the signal that motions him on.