There will be no pictures in this blog except the one picture of me taken a few years ago in Mexico. The casual leaning on the tongue lashing my ass kind of fits the bill. It shows the remnants of the poser and the ultimately cool Hollywood guy that will always be lurking somewhere in me.
 |
| John Lavitt Posing with Graffiti in Ensenada, Mexico in 2007 |
Below are four poems I wrote in 1994 when I gave in to cheap desire and became a crack addict. As you know from past entries, it was one of the ugliest times in my life. And it truly frightens me when I realize that it took close to another decade for me to hit bottom and finally get sober. All that time with brief stopping points and geographical escapes, I was an unforgivable addict. First crack, then cocaine and heroin. Always smoking except the one time that I shared a needle and was infected with the Hepatitis C virus. It sound like extraordinary bad luck, but it seems appropriate to me that such actions result in such consequences.
I have placed the four poems under a single heading in somewhat twisted homage to T. S. Eliot and his celebration of wastelands and alienated losers. After all, the names of Eliot's first two quartets are Burnt Norton and East Coker. It seemed to make sense in a strange sort of way since the themes of the first two poems of the series are described by C. K. Stead as...
1. The movement of time, in which brief moments of eternity are caught.
2. Worldly experience, leading on to dissatisfaction.
3. Purgation in the world, divesting the soul of the love of created things.
Such themes when mutilated surely reflect the horror as expressed below...
the four crack quartets
how accurate
long walk in darkness and silence,
a deafening cry pounding inside,
flooding the chambers, cheap desire,
so much freedom given away so soon,
mutilated on her altar, unrecognized,
rotting, and i almost gave my life
away, almost sacrificed my life
for smoke, my life for smoke.
can barely remember how it began;
when bitterness rose like vapor,
expanding into a cynical answer.
how quickly it filled my life,
how little there was to fill.
i'm not scared of these sentences.
today is not trembling with fear.
is tomorrow a burnt offering?
we expose horror in routine.
through routine the smoke
rises, habits rising night to night
until vergil and the dark descent
is no longer a poet's metaphor.
i pass him by, taking no notice,
noticing now only and forever
how cold and damp my palms,
how accurate the shaking.
more
this is amazing!
i am killing myself
with each rising breath
of bitterness, sweet
bitter smoke rising.
it has stolen me flat.
it creeps and lies readily
and more often in night
amid the slow emptiness,
slowly demanding more
the dive into a wave of death,
youth cruising on the crest
of a wave breaking, breaking
into my soul and the good life
sinks, drowning in ashes
dark magic, deluded, blinded,
the journey down and deeper
into buried lies, obscured
by the smoke and she calls
and i come and i abandon
all whys to the wanting,
i fall, solitary liar falling,
without fighting, bereft
of doubt, ignoring all fear:
this is just a passing fancy,
a consumer on the edge
of hell, american hell perfect
where the soul shrivels black,
the crack they sell extracts
wanting, wanting always more.
away
i have seen what the smoke
can destroy, almost without warning;
how readily i ignore the danger,
tossing the worst outcome aside
even when the worst is sure to arrive.
the real cost multiplied: pound of lung
and the disfigurement of pride.
ask and you shall see what lies:
all the smart reasons why i won't die,
why i'll never sink with the suicides;
because this, this is a crazy adventure,
a youthful romp down the road to hell
where hope withers, love impaled
on the wanting, cheap and ready.
the smoke; ready with the answer
to a question asked so carelessly.
my god, i gave your gifts away,
sacrificed more than good, more than evil,
more than the first taste from the tree –
hell - i murdered the first possibility.
all my potential reduced to residue,
ambition drowning in wet hollow sighs
as the fire god ignites an empty life
and i forget why i needed to escape,
forget the notion of escape, my life
so readily replaced by smoke slipping
into glassy eyes, engulfing all dignity
as the dream shrivels and friends die.
really o.k.
even rain falling
falls into the delusion
of rock, thin wet flakes
lurking under my tongue
in reflections of tin foil
i watch the very best lies
gently rise into smoke,
rising past all potential.
cold fingers rattle now,
waiting forever for one more
taste of sweet heaven-scent,
sinking swiftly into more
waiting, struggle to remain
a little more high and i
will be fine, i'm really o.k.
if there's one more hit,
but stillness never comes,
only the desperate maintenance
of purgatory, soon exhausted,
shivering into morning light.
