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“Open your mouth,” he said
“Open your mouth,” he said.
“I like to shoot through open mouths,” he said.
I did like he said
Not complying with 15-year-old scared gunmen
Makes you dead.
He stood there with his 9mm
Hand trembling, trying to look brave.
Me, too busy for scared
Too busy watching him,
Too busy watching his nervous partner
Too busy wondering about the street kids, behind me
Who piled into my van
Too busy wondering if I had any money to give him.
Slowly, I reach into my pocket
I feel money and pull it out, a ten
I hold it in front of me
I offer it to him.
He takes it, he wants more
His way to antsy partner wants to split
They run up the Boulevard
Like the scared little kids they are.
Only now am I shaking!
Wondering about continuing this dangerous work
I remind myself
God didn't get me through Viet Nam
Just to be be blown away by a punk kid
Must have been so I could do this work
I remind me how valuable this work is
And how well I do it.
I resolve to continue
(and to leave my valuables at home).
©2002, J.Jason Wittman
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Doper Boy
(partially on a theme by Bob Dylan*)
Doper Boy gets too high
Tries to fly
Gravity succeeded
Doper Boy sped too fast
So paranoid he couldn't last
The rest of life he ceded.
Doper Boy loved his heroin
Feelings, it blocked all of them
With life gone, it's no longer needed.
Doper Boy dug Acid, GHB and Ecstasy
Loved those new realities
When a speeding truck looked like a charging bull, his life it quickly ended.
Doper Boy didn't like alcohol, but switched to it from all those drugs
On it. he drove into a wall
Killed by the drug he hated.
Doper Boy died alone
He did his drugs on he own
But who and who and who and who made possible, this sad ending?
Who killed Doper Boy, why and what's the reason for?
“Not me,” said his parents proud, who stomped his feelings into the ground,
Who abused his mind, his body and soul, who never learned how to raise a kid.
“You can't blame us at all. He was just too resistant.”
Who killed Doper Boy, why and what's the reason for?
“Not me,” said the psychiatrists who trained him early how to best use drugs,
Who chose to prescribe rather than to talk, who abandoned him when the insurance stopped,
Who prescribed on top of drug abuse, who were quick to prescribe from afar
Preferring pills to good old talk.
“You can't blame us at all. We followed all our training.”
Who killed Doper Boy, why and what's the reason for?
“Not me,” said the pedophile, who fed him Mexican bought drugs to get in his pants,
Who “rescued” him from recovery at every chance.
“You can't blame me at all. I just did what he wanted.”
Who killed Doper Boy, why and what's the reason for?
“Not me,” said the group home and the recovery house, who expected him to be a model child, and
Who gave up on him after very few bouts.
“You can't blame us at all. We gave him his chances.”
Who killed Doper Boy, why and what's the reason for?
“Not us,” said the psych-hospitals, who doped him more during many brief stays,
Whose 30-day drug programs were sure to fail while draining his insurance.
“You can't blame us at all. He just wouldn't listen.”
Who killed Doper Boy, why and what's the reason for?
“Not us,” said his enabling friends, who bathed his wounds and protected him, “for his own good,”
Who loved him so that they couldn't let go, who shielded him from all but that final fall.
“You can't blame us at all. He was just so needy.”
Who killed Doper Boy, why and what's the reason for?
“Not me,” said the strangers, all, who bought him booze at the corner store,
Who served him, knowingly, at the bar, who didn't take the keys to his car.
“You can't blame me at all. I was just being friendly.”
Who killed Doper Boy, why and what's the reason for?
“Not me,” said the politicians, who made his disease into a crime,
Who chose to war on drugs over treating folks,
Who built prisons rather than treatment houses, who created public opinion, just to act on it.
“You can't blame me at all. I just do the People's will.”
Who killed Doper Boy, why and what's the reason for?
Doper Boy died alone
He did his drugs on he own
But who and who and who and who made possible this sad ending?
[Epilogue]
But doperboys need not die,
The failled hopes of their parents eyes.
If raised to love the one inside,
With confidence to live their lives,
Sucess could be the ending.
© 2000, Jason Wittman, MPS
* "Who Killed Davy Moore" by Bob Dylan
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If Only
(written after my elderly Mother tripped and fell)
If I only knew, if I only would
If I only did, if I only should,
If I only saw, if I only said,
If I only heard, She might not 'of bled,
But I didn't know, so I couldn't would,
I couldn't did, so I couldn't should,
What I saw, went too fast to said,
I thank the Lord, that She only bled!
© 2000, Jason Wittman, MPS
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Momma's Leaving Home
Momma's leaving home,
Fifty-seven years down the tubes.
No longer able to return to my original nest,
I pine.
Sorting through so many years of memories
Two generations reminisce,
A third, my son, learns anew.
Choosing keep-sakes to keep
What to sell
A difficult task for a keep-all mind!
Poor Mamma! Trading a nine room house, alone,
For a one room flat with community.
Tough choices at eighty-nine!
More unfair than choosing keepsakes.
©2001, Jason Wittman, MPS
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The Mother House Is Closing
The mother house is closing.
The secure womb of my childhood,
The refuge of my adult mind,
The, "I can always return to it if fortune sours," place,
Has been sold to the highest bidder.
Now its memories, too,
The tangible evidence of 57 years
Are being priced to sell
To be carried throughout the universe by people dumb to their history.
The womb of the Hummel Family and, then, the Wittman Family
Becomes a new womb to a new generation of a new family.
The tangibles; the beads, the books, the beds, the desks, the silver, the plates, the art
Are carried around the world,
Becoming the building blocks, the tokens, of new memories of other people.
May they be as secure, joyful and loving as mine!
Good-bye, old house!
© 2001, Jason Wittman
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