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Lies and Vices I took the smugglers’ highway for many a year it’s a road hidden well by trouble and fear; each dollar is earned through a paranoid sweat that’s why my money spends salty and wet. I sold my first nickel-bag back in Sunday school we all learned so young just how to be cool; the money was good but bad money can’t last 'cause money made easy is money spent fast. Cocaine has a conscience, karma and voice, an alluring cash bonus but not a good choice, for on the smugglers highway it can cry out to cops and won’t remain silent during chance traffic stops. Always calling to you when left hanging around, paranoia’s way up but the profits are down. Always good to be popular and have lots of friends but coming over at three A.M. man, it just has to end. There’s no money in chiva, keeping it all for your stash, in just a few months, you’ll have lost all your cash. Funny how it takes every bit of your wealth, to ruin and wreck every ounce of your health but heroin’s like that it must have it all it lies little whispers and forever will call. Yea you will walk in the valley of doubt That ancient chiva bastard, won’t let you out. I drove the smugglers highway with south of the border herb, why is that against the law? A law that’s absurd. Uncle Sam pushes cigars, chew and cigarettes, each kill thousands everyday but we’re not sick of it yet. Once on your deathbed and your life begins to drain don’t dare use marijuana to ease your nausea and pain. Fight for right and what you believe, don’t tell me what to smoke, a war on drugs is a war on pot, now that’s a shameful little joke. A war on drugs starts with the drugs that kill the most each day, tobacco and alcohol are the very worst is what our doctors say. This war of lies is a financial drain, with no results at all, endless families are torn apart, how come we’re not appalled? When Sam speaks about dope he refuses to deal in facts as bad as booze and tobacco are, he’s still pocketing the tax. Locking up addicts is futile and is going on far too long; calling prisons industries of growth is plain and simply wrong! The wasted billions of tax dollars thrown down the drain, spend it on rehabilitation and ease these people’s pain. Punishment has never worked, everyone has a vice, whisky and opiates are both alike, they kill and they entice. Alcohol’s made our roads unsafe and made good homes go bad, once we waged war on liquor and lost, the hypocrisy’s so sad. You can’t watch sports or have much fun without beer or alcohol, use something else you’ll go to jail, our government’s got some gall. So I drove that smugglers highway for thirty-odd years, I drove it for friends whose stories move me to tears. Both over fifty, one has aids and one has cancers, as to what eases their pains I trust them for the answers. While the government denies them a great medicine; kind buds make the rounds from kind friend to kind friend. When it comes to liberties the sick and poor want some too, why is it such a fight for the freedoms denied me and you? Quit asking for our children’s lives in wars both far and near, don’t use the liberation lie when we’ve more problems here. As the soldiers come home when your dirty war is through if they choose the wrong vice will you imprison them too? Quit wasting our dollars on some heartless cold jail, if you’d support these Americans then fewer would fail. All the souls that are lost keep bringing tears to my eyes for our own futures sake we must stop living these lies... |
This Poem was Critiqued By: Thomas H. Smihula On Date: 2003-10-05 08:32:04
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.56667
Mark first let me congratulate you on the winning poem last month it topped my list. Well done. Now for this poem you have given me a story of experience sometimes a little to much, yet I don't know if being vague helps either. Remember this is only this readers opinion. Example in your first stanza you might want to hit home sooner your point:
traveled the smugglers’ highway for many a year
roads hidden well by trouble and fear;
each dollar a paranoid sweat
money spent salty and wet.
sold a nickel-bag back in Sunday school
learned so young just how to be cool;
money was good but bad money can’t last
'cause money made easy is money spent fast. (my favorite line in this stanza)
Even though I showed a paired down version it is still to much for this reader to get to the most important lines
the money was good but bad money can’t last
'cause money made easy is money spent fast.
Always good to be popular and have lots of friends
but coming over at three A.M. man, it just has to end.
When it comes to liberties the sick and poor want some too,
why is it such a fight for the freedoms denied me and you?
All the souls that are lost keep bringing tears to my eyes
for our own futures sake we must stop living these lies...
These are a few of the thoughts that show me the thoughts you are expressing your poem gives me far to much to comprehend but that is only this simple minds opinion.
I did like your poem for the power you show. I always give an honest opinion. Tom