Tenebrous viscidity of air
When the snow comes to Miami.
It blankets the city,
Covers every crack and cranny.
The snow is without feeling—
Sin simpatico—
Neither for itself or others.
It merely blows with the air,
Blows in with the offshore wind,
The famous breeze.
It clings with icy indifference
To grins and grimaces,
Feels not for red hearts,
Nor for pocket books,
Doesn’t care whether wife speaks
To child, husband to mother.
It merely blows—
A comatose blow—
A Thanatos blow—
And nestles in
To numb the senses.
The chilled ones,
The frozen, also blow
About the cityscape
Like crystallized zombies—
Flakes of frenzy,
Flakes of false assurance
Eating to the bone
Their work,
Their lives,
Their loves,
Their homes.
May 1987
Anyone who has been around cocaine abusers knows how insidiously deceptive the drug is. The abuser's life could be falling apart around him or her, but the abuser remains clueless because the drug gives a false sense of felicity. Several times cocaine abusers have told me when I questioned their grip on reality, "Don't worry. I've got everything under control." Months later I find them jobless or divorced and they say, "Don't know what happened. But things will work out."
The 1980s in Miami were inundated with "blow"; it seemed to be everywhere and users were doing crazy things to get it either in powder or rock form. One attorney was pulled over for speeding, and beside him in the car was an opened kilo bag that he had been dipping into. Managers embezzled their companies to get money for their habits. Poorer women and men sold their bodies and household goods to pay for their habits--the true la vida loca.
Here's a new book on cocaine:
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