Spirits Have a Conscience

It's 3:23 AM on Fathers Day
Guilt
is that what keeps me awake

How do spirits keep
floating if they do
horrific things

I just think I didn't do enough
and I am revolving around
a tornado

You can see it
pluming, scheming, forming
going from one end of the
country to the other

Ya Shoulda Heard It

I am in a quandary.

I feel like boxing ears.

Hid in the sand ears

I want to resurface them

And say

Lookee

Where ya been

Ain’t you heard of it

Haven’t been touched by it?

Your comments are perplexing

They go something like

They had a choice

They didn’t have to take that first hit

They shoulda coulda done nothing like they did.

They coulda just lived in a perfect world like I did

I did it. They coulda to

They shoulda known better

I think they heard about it like I did 20, 40 years ago.

When I was 14

And ya weren’t born

You shouldn’ta had your head buried in not yet living or being

Cause, I think ya shoulda heard it.

I Must Have Flown the Coop

I guess I must have done something wrong
He says; she says so.

Cradling you in arms
singing praying laughing at your smiles

I must have flown the coop
I must have fried the sun on my head
of thot

I must have fridged my heart to be an ice block
so I couldn't see

I must have written that last blog while you were
drowning

Doesn't matter.

God will; does judge righteously.
He knows and will tell me

Not you who are blessed enough to
not have a child stumble into a railway train on a track

to point a gun to her head and pull the trigger because they can't take the pain

to flail at an eat 'n park and lose a career a whole other life

to drop one's pressure so as to be sure not to return to this life

It's a blessing to come back; to not be gone
But, you haven't had the experience

So, sorry for expecting you to understand,
It's like expecting the color red to see the color blue

If i could reach i could expect to lessen the death sentence

More of our kids would search for help
More of our benefactors would willingly respond and
mete out balm.

The Rebuttal

Facing the death of someone's kid from addiction
Is like grabbing two images embedded in concrete
butted up against one another

One of the dead child
the other of a veil of fog lined with daisies

an image turned around and behind
a monster hovering over the denial
in epic proportions

and I know it but i keep
revolving in denial

saying NO!  affirming NO!

By the Bye

I wasn’t there

you were

lines into your veins

keeping you just alive

I was in the kitchen

stuffing percolating

stirring

You were in the er

perishing

my baby

by the bye

fly ing

home to God

fleeing heroin

starting a step up the ladder

to heaven

forming a coalition with angels gone before

looking down on

them that don’t care

Are You Getting In?!!!!

Getting ready

Buying clothes you might need

Buying shoes and detergent

Trolling aisles in Target

Walmart, Marshalls for shoes.

Are we getting ready for vacation?

Are we getting ready for college? (I wish)

Taking a big long trip

Following the GPS

Getting a tour of the campus (I wish)

Hoping you get in

Will you?

Harvard, Anthropologist, Writer

Are you getting in

Grad school, moot point, graveyard

Are you getting in?

Someone's Lover

Seems like

I think I remember since no one seems to

There are individuals that are dying

Right now.

It seems to fall into the background

Unusually quickly

They are someone’s child

Someone’s lover

Someone’s parent

WE have to wait to get the narcan

Out

We have to wait till they want it

Those who don’t need it

Those who don’t have a parent, child, lover

Who needs it

The Old Laughing Lady

The Old Laughing Lady, probably my only Neil Young song.

This year, addiction came home to roost.

It wasn’t pretty cute anymore.

It was sad

hopeless…it was college years down the drain

college years that never came

or never present for.

Three of you listened to the whore

I wish peter pan were true

we’d jump out the window and

fly away to neverland

a ship at sea with crimson skies

I’d tell the captain to reach

and he would.

Spirits Drifting into Ether

Slowly
Maybe
It might change

you might begin to
notice the young'uns
disappearing

Shows written
Disappearing youth
can't compare the Reality

They go on
disappearing
w/o much ado

vials of hanging liquid
emptied along with
spirits drifting into ether

rivulets spiral down
and out
passing thru

blue runnel
flues into space

U might begin to notice

I Am Pretty Sure

 That Will Kill

Look at you

Now that you are OK

Look at me

Am I OK

I don’t think so

I am pretty sure

I am gonna have

A stroke soon

That will kill

Debilitate

I know I can call

On you, Lord

And it doesn't matter

In the infinite line

That goes on

But, But, But

I wanted to climb Everest

I wanted to photograph and

Draw trees that I love

And You have created.

I wanted to dance on

Waves in coastlines

That registered crinoline

Ribbons across behemoth portal

But,

That’s not just it

I wanted to do

What I wanted to

I didn't want to fight cancer

Didn’t want to fight indifference

Malicious indignation

Pernicious flights into

Subterfuge

Felonious fronts against peaceful

Nights at home by a fire

I wanted to sit on a hill

And float

Above the clouds as i

Assume my throne

Ruffling over waves of French

Threads of silken cloth

I wanted perfect lives

In all my threads

But I got this

I got that

I got sideways glances

Into death

I received maturation

Into truth

It's Not Unusual

Happens All the Time

People imagine from stereotypical visions what my kids who did heroin are like.

It happens all the time….the times we showed up in the emergency rooms and I as a mom was hoping for RESCUE, I was hoping for, no, expecting my child to finally be rescued and sent to salvation. I was expecting understanding from personnel and received disgust.

 I was hoping that the thin thread of hope I had thrown out to the ER expecting that my child would not be shuffled but attended to as a human being who needed rescued,

 It didn’t happen.

I know the dedication of nurses and ER work force. I personally think that education is needed.

Study Finds Addicted Patients More Likely to Recover if Treatment Begins in the ER

My kids are just like yours.  They went to college, they played soccer, and they wrote poems, knitted scarves, invented civilizations with bears and dolls. They hoped to be engineers, veterinarians, anthropologists and then heroin took over.  They were shuffled alright into despair.

All I ask is that the stigma end.

                             

My daughter, who is in a half-way house was in her first Art Show today:

This is why I volunteer for Not One More Pittsburgh. I want to help educate people about the hazards of heroin and how it could happen to your child.  I want to make our community aware of the epidemic.  I want to try to warn YOU so that you can avert the nightmare we went through.

Please join our organization and help.

Not One More Pittsburgh  and consider giving to our organization GoFundMe

Past Takes

It's amazing how you know
and I don't

It's amazing that I am threaded
with hope
against odds

but, I am

Forgetting that spell in the ccu
I hope that this is the TIMe

But, it isn't

So, I keep fighting and maybe it will work.

Some unknown cosmos will swoop in and
flatten past takes.

Guilliotine Me

Shall I go now.

She, embarking upon a house.

Shall I up a mountain and shout.

You who dismiss help, winching

dregs of balm

because you misunderstand

addiction.

Your feeble attempts at disbursement

guillotine me.

How many have you condemned to death,

literally?

But, there is hope.

You can learn.

No Backtracking

She comes from an alternate universe
Where alternators live
Flubbing the shots and so
I have to mix it up

Down she goes
mixing it around
randomly choosing
shall i listen to names
that miss humanness

I say no

Rules don’t apply
of sense

murking up a bit

logic leaves on a train
with no backtracking

Big red door
blocking the way

Dispirited face
locks the child inside
far in alternative world

A place where I cannot go
Listen to In The Cold Light of Morning
(Read the Lyrics:http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/placebo/inthecoldlightofmorning.html )

Do You Know What Your Kids are Up to?

If you are in Pittsburgh tomorrow come join us at The Art Institute.

Not One More Pittsburgh will be raising awareness of the Heroin Epidemic.

Parents, I am telling you, you need to take action, you need to be proactive.
I had no clue my kids were dabbling with drugs, let alone messing with Heroin.
Just put "Heroin Epidemic" in google and see what you come up with. Here is an example of
a report: http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/americas-heroin-epidemic/managing-sons-heroin-addiction-full-time-job-n77391 It's everywhere. It's not just in the inner city like you might imagine. You need to be
in the know.  Educate yourself. In the future Not One More Pittsburgh will be showcasing The Anonymous
People in several locations in Pittsburgh area. Check out the trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqoEtUn0Agw

My daughter went for help to an emergency room. They sent her home. I called them back and said why...and told a little of her story...the professional said, "I think you want it more than she does..."
If your baby were lying in a gutter, would you step over her/him and say, oh, "She doesn't want it bad enough."  Of course not.

Drug use is a choice initially. Eventually it become a disease. "The rewarding effects of drugs of abuse come from large and rapid upsurges in dopamine, a neurochemical critical to stimulating feelings of pleasure and to motivating behavior. The rapid dopamine “rush” from drugs of abuse mimics but greatly exceeds in intensity and duration the feelings that occur in response to such pleasurable stimuli as the sight or smell of food, for example. Repeated exposure to large, drug-induced dopamine surges has the insidious consequence of ultimately blunting the response of the dopamine system to everyday stimuli. Thus the drug disturbs a person’s normal hierarchy of needs and desires and substitutes new priorities concerned with procuring and using the drug." (http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih2/addiction/guide/essence.htm)

Do not abandon your loved one: My Sister Was an Addict So for Years I Stayed Away  let's you know what the proper response is. I am not saying that you shouldn't set boundaries. 

Come to the Art Institute tomorrow, August 22, 2014 and see if you can become part of the solution.  Arm yourself with knowledge. Be proactive. Join Not One More PIttsburgh: 
https://www.facebook.com/events/1464253763827419/
RX2DC is an event promoting the awareness of the dangers of prescription medication deaths an overdoses. 

An creative display of approximately 15,000 prescription bottles, some with pictures of lives lost caused by prescription medication and addiction/overdose.

Join Not One More, Sage's Army and others in support of the Ohio group, RX Epidemic Memorial Foundation. Help them educate people on the dangers of Prescription drugs, who is affected and how these drugs play a role in our Drug Addiction Epidemic. Come share your story, bring a photo of a loved one lost to overdose and be an interactive participant or just come and support.

The Art Institute of Pittsburgh is cohosting this event and will be doing videos as well. Media will also be attending.

Chronic Pain

Sometime I feel like a motherless soul 

I wander from place to place
i sit beside him

he sits in his chair
hey so do i

corrupted by pain
in a stupor

its a shame
we have no
repartee

just rockets
with seats onto
our own universe

Cut off by chronic pain
Art would say
no pain = no gain

and I guess Art
would be right

I remember when
the muse resided in him
creating fulfilling now
he knocks on his door
anxious to get at the
gem residing in the long
hallway with erected crystalline
guards suffocating his outer
rings

I in my chair
He in his
Chronic pain

Hurricane

It hit me again

It hit him

and me

again

Like before

I didn't expect it

at all

It waited until

I was lulling in

the mirror reflection

on the river

Sentries on vacation

I didn’t react at first

Took awhile to hit me

the first wave

the next

the whirlpool

My hand up in the

center

not waving for help