by 
“Junk sickness is the reverse side of junk kick. The kick of junk is that you have to have it. Junkies run on junktime and junkmetabolism. They are subject to junk climate. They are warmed and chilled by junk. The kick of junk is living under junk conditions. You cannot escape from junk sickness anymore than you can escape from junk kick after a shot.” Junky
nobody tells her how to spend her pay
so she thought nothing of passing a buck
to the man – bronze with sun and dirt –
clutching his poverty and homelessness
scag*-dancing his way down Mainline Street
* scag = a bag of heroin
© 2012, poem, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved; Photo ~ circa WW I heroin bottle by Mpv51 generously released into the public domain.
“In 2015 about a quarter of a billion people used drugs. Of these, around 29.5 million people – or 0.6 per cent of the global adult population – were engaged in problematic use and suffered from drug use disorders, including dependence.” MORE United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
*****
“Today, more than 7 million people suffer from an illicit drug disorder, and one in four deaths results from illicit drug use. In fact, more deaths, illnesses and disabilities are associated with drug abuse than any other preventable health condition. People suffering from drug and alcohol addiction also have a higher risk of unintentional injuries, accidents and domestic violence incidents.” MORE Gateway Foundation
WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT
There are many people whose lives are touched by the ramifications of substance abuse. In my own country, it is estimated that more than two-thirds of families have felt the impact of addiction. Maybe your experience inspires anger or sadness. Maybe it inspires compassion. Tells us about your views, feelings or experiences in your own poetry.
Share your poem/s on theme or a link to it/them in the comments section below.
All poems on theme will be published next Tuesday. Please do NOT email your poem to me or leave it on Facebook. If you do it’s likely I’ll miss it or not see it in time.
IF this is your first time joining us for The Poet by Day, Wednesday Writing Prompt, please send a brief bio and photo to me at thepoetbyday@gmail.com to introduce yourself to the community … and to me :-). These will be partnered with your poem/s on first publication.
PLEASE send the bio ONLY if you are with us on this for the first time AND only if you have posted a poem (or a link to one of yours) on theme in the comments section below.
Deadline: Monday, October 22 by 8 p.m. Pacific.
Anyone may take part Wednesday Writing Prompt, no matter the status of your career: novice, emerging or pro. It’s about exercising the poetic muscle, showcasing your work, and getting to know other poets who might be new to you. This is a discerning non-judgemental place to connect.
ABOUT
Poet and writer, I was once columnist and the associate editor of a regional employment publication. Currently I run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded. I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers.
My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The River Journal, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman.
Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 
daring a second that I’ve had for a while…
Relapse
Again I hear
it’s expected and part of recovery. Continued self discovery
And yet
some are discovered. Dead.
Again I hear
it’s illness. Or maybe genetic/ hereditary
And yet
it seems choice when
the needle goes in.
Again I hear
it’s a process, a journey
And yet
this journey takes me to hell.
Again I hear
there is no failure as long as I continue trying
And yet
there is no success in the trying.
Again I hear
I have my whole future ahead of me
And yet
there is a hole in the future.
Again I hear
everyone deserves another chance
And yet
the next chance looks just like the last.
Again I hear
keep coming back
And yet
I only come back to the abyss
Again I hear
Accept the things I cannot change
And yet
I have again.
Relapse.
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Well, you did it again!!!!… I mean, prompted a poem from me, dear Jamie…. Here it is:
TO LET THE SUN SHINE IN
Substance abuse?… I do not know
Of that myself – and this, although
I was born somehow right in time
For being a Hippie #metoo:
I loved ‘Hair’ (yes, I keep singing
Still ‘Let the Sun shine in’…),
I did study at La Sorbonne
And later lived ‘May 68’
When students and the young workforce
Did fraternize and reinvent
The French society, for a while.
I could then, as many others,
Have fallen into drug abuse,
Yet my soul kept me far from it
And never did I even try.
Cigarettes? I didn’t like them
And soon stopped wasting my money
Into packets my friends emptied
Before I remembered to smoke!
Alcohol? I’ll take a few drops
Of old rum drowned in cane syrup
And call that my own ‘Planteur Punch’…
More than that I wouldn’t enjoy,
So never got drunk, by God’s Grace!
My own addiction is much worse
For yes, I am in constant need
And require my fix all the time…
But far from destroying any
Of what I truly am, instead
It is making my whole being
Grow back ever more consciously
– And ever more blissfully too –
Into my deeper, truer Self,
My eternal and divine Self:
Right while being in this body
(And with all my dear body-cells
Taking their own share of the Bliss),
Addicted to Divine Delight
As to our natural birthright,
I make it my daily diet
And my more and more constant high
Except that I don’t get blissed out,
But rather blissed in, I would say!
It doesn’t require anything
External to my own being:
We’re all born with that potential
And can activate it at will.
Only, this is what we must choose
If this is what we want to have.
It is what we all truly crave
But most of us are never told
And hear only of outer drugs
When the Real Thing is in us,
Right in our own core, or also
Right around us, all around us,
Everything is bathing in it!…
The supply isn’t a problem
For the supply is infinite,
And yes, totally free to boot!!!
So here is my smiling advice
For true happiness as a vice:
Turn to this Divine Addiction
To Use Without Moderation,
Your sun then will shine from within
And make our world happier too!…
That’s what we all come here to do.
Bhaga d’Auroville
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👍🧡
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..fine lines..
it is a fine line we walk,
gently avoiding peptides,
only just a theory,
yet used independantly,
alongside honest work,
for mending.
the film continues,
some of the old cast, new actors oblige,
ideas on lack of addictive ways.
simple days without receptors.
singing under breath, counting, unpacking boxes,
this is the lead. hints are posted, and may you believe them graciously.
for many times will you be tested.
there were substitles, out of focus,
we could not read the other language.
the film continues…. peptides.
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#valium
look at the little people.
arms held high. the medicine
is in the cabinet, they cannot
reach it.
sbm.
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Here is my submission for this theme. Such a timely one, Jamie! There is so much talk right now but not enough action.
https://iidorun.wordpress.com/2018/10/18/my-husbands-affair-with-ms-c/
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True. Heartbreaking. Glad to see you here this week, Irma.
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Thank you! Glad to be back!
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so much to say – abut the “other victims”
Basic Education
cold and wet in a bed
shared with two others
a single blanket barely
covering three
cereal dredged
from box bottoms
cracker crumbs
breakfast to go
darkened room
fuzzy cartoons
clothes in piles
and under chairs
stepping over
bottles and butts
spoons and powder
and stepping out
past yells and cries
smells and smoke
out to a yard
of condoms and needles
onto cracked sidewalks
fences and offers
for candy and rides
by not so strange strangers
arriving at last
into a classroom
of second grade friends
and the teacher announcing,
“Makir, you’re late, again.”
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This is such a heartbreaking poem yet the reality for many children living with addicted parents. Beautifully and compassionately written.
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Thank you – often the forgotten one in the recovery game
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need’ll
in the dead man’s car a needle
on the dead man’s face foamed saliva
and an easy smile.
the total count of needles in the car
was sixty-Two.
squirrel-stashed here and there
in his guesthouse abode
we’re many more. one of his
saltshakers
contained in salt. his spare teeth
were in a falsebottomed container.
his pain and
his holes of loss
of fellow wretches and
a wife had
at last
evaporated
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corrections to the just-submitted:
the phrase “in salt” should be “unsalt.”
there’s a “we’re” that should be “were.”
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Hi Jamie,
My second response:
Unreal Wombwell,
The Old Town Hall is a pub
where a pint sups half full or half empty,
pedestrians intent upon their daily task
Pied wagtails twerk and pass by
green unicorns, the canal and mines
frozen in metal on a gate into a side street,
Air is made of warm Potters pie pastry,
Hashish cracks doors of perception.
Old gypsy nags snort past betting shops.
The day assembled of colour coded bones
so it stands upright and invites a spy
of its wears, whyfores and whatevers
And wagtail dodge and weave between feet.
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Hi Jamie,
Here’s my first response:
Hashish
Hijab covered she arrives
at my till with her two young girls
What us that smell? She exclaims
Hashish, I answer.
Her small kids hold close to her dress.
There should be a law.
Especially with kids around.
They shouldn’t have to suffer this.
The aroma of the previous male customer
still hangs around after she’s left.
(From a forthcoming collection “Please Take Change, Cyberwit.net, 2018)
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