An Ode to a Junkie

“If I seem to be reckless with myself,
It's the fault of no one.
All things have a place
Under the moon as well as the sun.”
- Elliott Smith

A teen in the 60s he was tripping
and dancing to The Warlocks,
since then he's done and run about everything:
weed, peyote, speed, heroin,
and everything else under the sun-
it grayed his hair and mottled his skin
but he says mostly it was fun

Wild and wide-eyed,
he knocks on the cellar door
of my bedroom;
I'm no pusher
but what he seeks he finds
(you can judge but I don't mind)

I really like the old guy:
his cheerful, brash manners,
yellow teeth and nicotine-stained fingers,
his stories about construction jobs
and Alaskan fishing schooners
(told with a gentle drawl)

He knows I like Starbucks iced coffees,
or sometimes when I'm hung-over
I have him fix eggs and bacon
(it's delicious if I make him wait for his fix.)

Ya know,
in the end they can't stop us:
sometimes I know I go too far and
someday, like him,
I may spend time in Folsom Prison.

But our right to alter our minds and bodies
is far more rooted in natural law
(and far less dangerous)
than the "right" to write just anything for anyone to read,
to take assault rifles along on errands
and little pistols to school-board meetings,
to vote on weighty and crucial issues
the lightest book on which you mightn't have read

But then what do I know?
I'm just another long-haired "junkie"