i am just telling you

I just heard from a friend
A person who died
do yu care

I guess it's hard to relate
if yo don't

so I think i am telling you
to react so you don't need to
RELATE

Merry Christmas from Shaws

Free greeting card made with Smilebox

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

We Are Here

http://www.weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/hurricane-joaquin-bahamas-atlantic-east-coast-bermuda-2015

Well here we are
A hurricane on the East
Fed up Rally, Facing Addiction
on The Mall
and who shows up
Joaquin approaches and it
is justified and synchronized with
how addiction  meddles its string ever
so slight at first but thickening into a rope
of non-hope

But look we are here
not just this year
but every
year
every
life
but tears
tears bonds

I am sure we won't be
silenced by winds or waves
bobbling to shout above the roar

Our kids need HELP!

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

Frozen Diatribe

Who will we pray for tonight
my ailing country

The sequestered mind
nodding in the corner?

the frozen diatribe unspoken?

Riding their horses
over the land
looking for food
finding dope?

The trees are gone
almost

My country

The quartered sums
of thoughts

The schools shut down

Loans need to be paid

Epi demic
doesn't register
unless it hits home

Immobile Fantasies that seem OK but Aren't

There he is

Sitting there

Immobile

I introverted

Wondering how to swoop in

On what I must do to survive

It will only take

Extreme intervention

For us to make it

The universal life force will have

To intervene.

Who will tell them to.

Pings across centuries

That organize this chaos

And say this can’t

Continue

Without certitude

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

Blue Hues

There is a seashore I saw in a dream

It said step here

And go down to the fluid

Grains grow up in my

Thought of you

I waited

You did come

Did you see the color?

It preceded your arrival

Blue hued flues of pillars

Went down to the sand

To the right I looked and

Saw a cliff

Not blue but mud

Perfect frame

How many times do I have to

Travel?

I want to stay in place and have

Your waves come to me.

Cracks and Trains

“There is a crack running down right the front of me”

I can walk out into the waves that blew past the mountain

The port drops off

I get to step into the sky

There I find a cold wait

For the next train

That’s the jist of life

You do and do

You try hard

No one even is looking 

21 days video

The End of Civilization

The End of Civilization

I am so sad today

My end was bought.

I have to find another end.

They are buying up the end

and doomsdaying the Wild

horse of Corolla

I shall die too

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.