Cocaine

Withdrawing sweet relief
copper pennies piece by piece
we see you walk the streets
like a drowsy Diebold machine
pimps and shadow stalkers
five and dime their lives away
hunger dresses up in darkness
slips through litter spilling life
snowdrifts bury evidence
of bewildered shapeless waifs
snowballs rest in alleyways
Vancouver’s future melts away.

Love, we listened to your song
sometimes we even sang along
as the sidewalk frosted over
in your spittle and your blood.

We watched your frozen hands
caress the instruments you love
is there anything you cherish
do you miss what you have lost?

Hunger holds the razor blade
to your sweating pulsing throat
while your life begins to drip
through the grating in the street
draining down in pouring rain
through the sewer to the sea
your city never cared for youth
and it will never notice death
and all the lives you never lived
went for nothing but a trick
just a vicious midnight dream
breathless lust for sweet cocaine.

Why can’t anything be done
to find a cure for constant pain
don’t you feel a sense of shame
for the carnage you have seen?

Did you never think of growth
give up the prostitutes and filth
can’t you spare a breath of guilt
for the children in your midst?



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Ironically, Vancouver, BC was selected
to host the Worlds XXI Winter Olympics…