WINE AND BREAD
Picked
up some hash in the morning,
purchased wine and bread and
returned home;
Carmelina told me our daughter
Bonita and our 3 grandchildren
may soon be homeless:
in the afternoon we got
intimate and satisfied each other,
I smoked joints
swallowed diazepam and
codeine and read some
reviews of my latest
publications and put in some
work selecting and editing
a chapbook of poetry by
Doug Draime
and afterwards drank
some glasses of wine
smoked some more hash
and pissed from the
kitchen door into the
black cold night and
decided that the day,
for me, had ended.
purchased wine and bread and
returned home;
Carmelina told me our daughter
Bonita and our 3 grandchildren
may soon be homeless:
in the afternoon we got
intimate and satisfied each other,
I smoked joints
swallowed diazepam and
codeine and read some
reviews of my latest
publications and put in some
work selecting and editing
a chapbook of poetry by
Doug Draime
and afterwards drank
some glasses of wine
smoked some more hash
and pissed from the
kitchen door into the
black cold night and
decided that the day,
for me, had ended.
Doug Draime
As a chemist working for F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, Leo Sternbach discovered benzodiazepines, the main class of tranquilizers. His most successful one was diazepam, which was marketed in 1963 as Valium; : between 1969 and 1982, it was the most prescribed drug in the US. One dose modulates the dopamine system in ways similar to how morphine and alcohol modulate the dopaminergic pathways. In 1832 Pierre Jean Robiquet, while working on refined morphine extraction processes, isolated codeine from several active opium components. It is typically used to treat mild to moderate degrees of pain, and is by far the most commonly taken opiate in the world and probably the most commonly used drug.
ReplyDeleteDoug Draime, poet, short story writer, and playwright, began writing as a teenager in Vincennes, Indiana, then studied philosophy and creative writing at the University of Chicago and theater at the Fine Arts Academy. After being drafted he served in the American infantry during the Vietnam War, then moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1967 and became active in the anti-war movement while studying film and anthropology at Los Angeles City College. He briefly pursued a career as an actor, and his 1st works began to be published, eventually producing 15 collections of poetry. In 1981 he moved to Ashland, Oregon, to work as a special education assistant. He received PEN grants, in 1987, 1991 and 1992. (The Poets, Essayists, Novelists Club was founded in 1921, but eventually PEN came to stand for Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists, Novelists and includes journalists, historians, and writers of any form of literature.) Here is one of his poems:
Nada
There is nothing
truly authentic in a world
where blood
glistens like rubies,
the shine blinding us
where everything
is upside down,
the ego mind grasping
for illusive, shadowy clues
where war and disease
and human depravity
call the shots
where life is like death
and death like life
in a world that
we think we live in
The word "joint" derived from the Latin "iunctus," the past participle of "iungere" (join, bind, yoke). It evolved into a French adjective, "joint," meaning "joined," and acquired a meaning as a part of the body where 2 bones meet and move in contact with each other by the 12th century. Its association with bone displacement ("out of joint") led to its connotation of disordered, confused gone wrong. By 1821, "joint" was an Anglo-Irish term for a side-room attached to a main room. By 1877, "joint" had developed into American slang for a place, building, or establishment, particularly one where people met for illicit purposes, and by 1883 it referred to an opium den. By 1935 a joint was a hypodermic outfit, but its 1st usage in the sense of "marijuana cigarette" did not occur until 1938.
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