Stop Taking the Cocaines
I’m posting this primarily for storage reasons, but maybe you can read it at work too.
Joy and I wrote these shortly after graduation. The story is this: We took a creative writing course where there were a lot of pretentious poems — particularly from this one guy. He wrote a poem about being on drugs and getting kicked out of school. So I wrote “Stop taking the cocaines!” on it when we were writing down comments to be passed back to the author.
Bourne out of work boredom/unemployment boredom, we created these couplets.
Stop Taking The Cocaines
By Joy Allen and Dan Miller
I. Janey
Janey did somersaults and danced in the park,
She’d stay there all day until it got dark.
She didn’t mind feeling hyped-up and jittery,
Or rolling around getting dirty and littery.
Until one day she met her friend Ted,
Who had a patch on one eye and a hat on his head.
Give me my money, he screamed in her ear,
Then threatened to slaughter her family dear.
Janey recoiled and she uttered a curse,
She worried about the stash that she had in her purse.
Ted looked in her eyes; He sensed she was holding.
With his gun in her face, she felt her future unfolding.
All of a sudden, she saw a bullet pierce his head,
He flew several feet forward and hit the ground dead.
“Mom!” Janey said as she stood over his remains.
“Janey,” she replied, “Stop taking the cocaines.”
II. Lisa
Lisa loved camping and carried a tent
In the back of her car wherever she went
She hitched it and pitched it all over the town
She slept in it at night and then took it down.
She had nary a problem ’til two ugly thugs
Looking for trouble with a frown on their mugs
She turned off her flashlight and pretended to sleep
But she still heard their voices as they continued to creep.
“Did you see her new car? That bitch got some money!”
They were drawn to her Geo like bears are to honey.
The broke into the trunk and what did they see?
Crack rocks and ecstasy, marijuana and speed.
This trove before them, they could not control,
Their base instinct to smoke a bowl.
Lisa burst from the tent as they lit up their flames,
Screaming “Take what you want, but leave the cocaines!”
III. Paul
Edward was a scoundrel, a bad guy, a thief,
And when a truck hit him it was a relief.
But for those who were behind him, his loss left a space
For made men and cappos who wanted his place
But the one who rose up, a meathead named Paul
Was more ruthless and vicious than the rest of them all
His skin tone was swarthy, his eyes dark as flint,
He planned to package drugs as a restaurant mint
He’d mix up some chocolate and added in some white powder,
No one knew what they were in for after they finished their chowder.
Once back from lunch break employees were flying;
Their breath was all minty but brain cells were dying.
They’d wibble and wobble, and occasionally crash,
And while this was happening Paul took all their cash.
At the expensive of their stoned-out brains,
Paul made millions off of selling cocaines.
IV. Bob
Keeping accounts is a dull occupation,
so what can one choose to obtain some elation?
That is the thought that ran through Bob’s mind,
Day after day until the weekend arrived.
But relief did come–Bob thought it odd it
came to him during a celebrity audit
When he thought of the idea his face began to glow
Instead of keeping books he would just sell some blow.
He knew all the cokeheads, the stoners and wrecks-
He kept their cell numbers in his Rolodex
He called up a mobster and a crook in Sing Sing,
This was a much easier way to earn some bling bling.
He took a deep breath to quell his deep fear,
Then asked for a hook-up from the old racketeer
When his shipment arrived he was taken aback,
He didn’t get what he want, just a few joints and some crack.
What could he do? He had customers waiting,
But complaining to gangsters is as fun as bear baiting.
At first he was hopeless and thought his plans had gone sour,
So he threw together some baking soda, some sugar and flour,
The mixture was white, the texture was gritty
He could target the teens in the suburbs of the city
The kids all loved it and thought it was super,
It made them stand on their heads then fall down in a stupor.
The accountant, bemonied, did naught to correct
The underhand bliss of the placebo effect.
He never told anyone what the recipe contains,
Because for all anyone else knew he had an endless supply of cocaines.
V. Johnny and Sally
Johnny was a hipster, a rock ‘n’ roll dude,
He had long hair, a piercing and a mouth that was crude.
He played his three chords, rocked the microphone,
Convinced he was better than Joey Ramone
When he was done he’d smash his guitar on the floor,
But twenty minutes earlier the crowd had gone out the door.
The only solution to his lack of appeal
Was to sing Doorsian songs about visions surreal
To get in the mood he took a swig of straight rum,
Ran in a circle and slapped his friends on the bum.
And, thus empowered by old Captain Morgan,
He crooned songs of doom and thrummed notes on the organ.
A little bit high and considerably drunk,
He saw someone dealing, it looked like a punk.
When the young man’s gaze rested on Johnny’s face,
His thoughts all vanished. He felt out of place.
The man opened his trench coat and revealed his large stash,
He had several small baggies and a whole lot of hash.
Then a sly smile stole over his lips;
“Let’s go somewhat harder. That stuff’s for dips.”
After the show they took off down an alley,
And met up with a pimp and a hooker named Sally.
When Johnny saw Sally his heart started to flutter;
She wasn’t just any old ho from the gutter.
She had a blonde wig and a sequin studded bra,
She had heart; she had spirit, a certain je ne sais qua
The pimp led the way, Johnny followed behind him,
Sally’s gold teeth shining bright enough to blind him
They entered a room to see blow and some laughing gas,
Sally casually noticed Johnny’s hand on her ass.
The rest of the evening went by in a blur.
Johnny only thought thoughts of his cocaine and her.
When they awoke in the morning neither of them wore any clothes,
Sally felt around on the floor to find her fishnet pantyhose.
What she found instead was her pimp, comatose,
And the punk rocker kid with a bad overdose.
She slapped him and shook him to make him come to,
He mumbled and grumbled and threw up in his shoe.
The pimp was much worse–his breathing then ceased
A few minutes of panic and they knew him deceased
They hopped in his car and took off for Albuquerque,
They stopped off for slurpees and a bit of beef jerky.
Now Johnny sings only Southwestern refrains
About love for his Sally and hate for cocaines.
VI. Barbara
Barbra was funny, she knew all her stuff,
Her stand-up was witty and street-smart and rough.
She couldn’t make ends meet by telling a joke,
So she supported her comedy habit by selling some coke.
She thought her endeavor would give her more edge,
As would making angel dust out of some Pledge.
One night at the club came a moment she would dread.
By selling drugs and comedy she literally knocked the crowd dead.
The five lonely people who has come to see her
Had all bought her wares so they could laugh freer.
She tried her joke about clowns and the one about porpoises,
But she just couldn’t succeed with an audience of corpses.
And with the quick death of her clientele,
She consigned herself in Bad Comedienne Hell.
So when she died at the ripe old age of eighty-six,
She found herself on Satan’s stage across the river Styx.
No funny men passed from OD’s cared to greet her;
No Belushi or Farley or — Kinneson, is he here?
She soon learned that no one laughs in hell,
They just grimace and puke at the sulphurous smell.
As she watched the refuse roll down the dank drains,
She thought back on the wondorous horror cocaines.