Each person in the Day Reporting Program has been offered the option of jail-time or participation in the program, which provides job counseling, drug testing, stress management classes, GED classes, art classes, etc. The participants, usually ten to twenty in a cohort, vary widely in age, gender, race, and ethnicity. Their education level and past exposure to poetry also differs greatly. Most of them have struggled with drug addiction for years, mostly heroin, crystal-meth, and opioids, but occasionally other drugs as well. Many of them seem to be living very close to the edge, often living with family or friends, “getting by” from day to day and week to week. It is beautiful and heartening to watch them grow in confidence and ability, carrying their poetry books with them (they each receive a hard-bound blank “moleskin” book), writing poems that are powerful, direct, raw, and immediate, and supporting one another in their self- discovery and their attempts to stay clean. The poems here are presented anonymously to protect the privacy of the poets, but also to reflect the collaborative and communal nature of the workshop.
Supported by a grant from:
Re-Imagining Wordsworth (At the end of June, 2021, we read Wordsworth's great poem "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal." We wanted to reimagine the poem, to emulate its ballad form and also to move it closer to our experience as recovering addicts. Here is the Wordsworth poem. What follows, written collectively as a group, is our response.) Recovery of the Past We dreamed of the day we’d forget the past Bonding over drugs and pain Although it seemed to go so fast It’s filled with demons not yet slain We never want to forget the past It’s part of who we are Without it we’d be lessened And leave behind the lessons of our scars
Video Poems:
(Many of us have lost people to overdose. The following is an elegy (a poem of loss and remembrance) for a friend, written by one of our members.)
A poem for Steven
I know life is a bitch
And she don’t fight fair
How the fuck I wake up
From a dream to a nightmare
The fuck’s I give up
in the night’s glare…
I know you’re walking up to heaven
On them white stairs
Who I Really Am
False pride and empty shoes
no gratitude
awakening from the depths of hell
tooth and nail to a plateau of who I really am
light replaces the dark
my pride and dignity lays with who I really am
The Prophecy has been Written
apparently, I have been
declined my destiny
until
I uphold the legacy
of my ancestor
dear God
I ask for vision
guide me through
the land
of snakes
.S
The Trenches
I live
in the trenches where CODE kicks in the door
the same place where I threw out so many whores.
I hate but love
this place – don’t know if I want to live here anymore.
Another Kind of Addiction
this time of year reminds me
of all the falls of my past
all my past falls
all the dim-lit halls
the time in my life
when I displayed no balls
when I was all alone – displaced
when everyone turned their backs
she stepped in and filled the empty space
a love affair so dark
& twisted
all the voids in my life –
I hardly missed them
Feeling Healthy / Never Going Back
At the end of my suffering there was
a door.
There
was my son.
I could see him so
clearly.
present day
the sun shines hot on a humid, sticky, cloudy afternoon
I’m on my back-porch swing smoking a cig
relaxing
but sweaty “twack” stars
fighting
like rabid cats over the last hit
of their dose
long hours later
temperatures rise
eighty-five Fahrenheit / man
why’s it gotta be so humid?
thoughts interrupted
twack star is
asking
for some cold water, which I give
him and send him away
left with thoughts of empathy
glad for my sobriety
New Route
Church street, the gauntlet
the possibilities are near.
Returning to the old me –
that’s my biggest fear.
To the left off Wilson, a short distance down 6th,
go left, then right, and I get my fix.
Grateful for the new me –
I’m changing my thoughts.
Dead is the old me,
In recovery it rots.
Storm of Sadness
written collectively by members of
the Day Reporting Program an example
of the “objective correlative” – 12/14/20
sitting thru a windstorm watching a ripped bag
blow down the street
the plastic bag flips and dips as the wind
whispers and whips
ripped and torn
weathered not neat
the water trapped in potholes
ripples with the wind
wet and cold, a stormy wind
ugliness and helplessness sink in
flipping and rolling
flipping and rolling
kids trying to catch it as it goes
down the road
in and out of the water
but with no prevail
violent hail comes down with fury
the umbrella cannot shield its might
suddenly the trees are falling over
knocking out the power with their
ice-covered branches
mind trudging along
as it slowly fills with rain
trudging along as
mind and pothole
slowly fill with rain
the sound...tree branches break
my inner thoughts
subconsciously awake
Ode to Grandma’s Purple Pajamas
I remember coming home from college
and putting on your purple, puppy-dog pajamas
so soft that they felt like home
plummeting through the door
after an 8-day bender
a desperate shower
and the purple, puppy-dog pajamas
held me as I got lost
in the abyss
it was the smell of “I-give-a-shit”
mixed with flora softener
and your love in the folds
it was the way they sat in your third drawer down
it was the way they were always there for me
just like you
they always hugged me tight
just like you