Thanks for your support on the drug issue, Del. What I was trying to say, and probably didn't emphasize enough, is that people who go beyond recreational or spiritual use of minimally harmful drugs, which would include to me only alcohol, marijuana, hashish and LSD and mushrooms--cocaine seems fun at first but is quickly addictive and feels very negative--are trying to kill massive amounts of pain in their psyches. They are truly self-medicating, but the drugs they choose to kill the pain are illegal. If treatment is offered so that the underlying causes of what is wrong are dealt with at the same time as the addiction process is stopped, these people have good chances at normal lives.
Some people believe that only a certain small group of people are destined to become addicts, but if you look at the enormous and mostly undetected group of seniors who turn to alcohol to kill pain in later life, when they are depressed because of losing loved ones and because of other end-of-life issues, it becomes obvious that many people use drugs/alcohol as pain killers.
And then there is the issue in the ghettos of America, where dealing drugs is a logical, rational decision because it is the best, fastest, most profitable and highest status way to make money. If drugs were decriminalized, and we took the money misspent on interdiction and tried to do constructive, life-building things with it, like providing lots more recreation and career counseling and trade schools, we could cause a lot good things to happen.
The poem you didn't like was about the love of a man for land, something I know you feel as well, and the memories of a life spent working it and looking at it as beautiful bits of landscape, and the remembrance of his youth--dances at crossroads--and saying goodbye to all of that, and life as well, and also on a symbolic level the fertile triangles represent female sexuality, the loss of which I would be crying about a lot if I were a dying guy!!! I bet all that doesn't make you enjoy it any better, though, and that was my hope, so oh well or something!!!
Now I will try once more. This is about something we have talked about here before--troubled marriages--and I thought it was pretty sensual in a quiet, reserved Irish way.
Woman, Don't Be Troublesome
Woman, don't be troublesome,
though your husband I may be;
our two minds were once at one,
why withdraw your hand from me.
Put your mouth of strawberry
on my mouth, cream is your cheek;
wind round white arms about me,
and do not go back to sleep.
Stay with me my flighy maid,
and be done with betrayal;
tonight this bed is wellmade,
let us toss it without fail.
Shut your eyes to other men,
no more women will I see:
the milkwhite tooth of passion
is between us--or should be.
Augustus Young (James Hogan)
1943-
Oh dear, I'm pretty sure you didn't like that one at all, but maybe someone will. I don't watch much tv, and like documentaries about animals, anthropology/archaeology and politics the most, and MSNBC news coverage is pretty good. I like Joe Kernen's work, as you well know, and a few silly comedies like Frasier, Seinfeld, Third Rock from the Sun, Suddenly Susan and sometimes Friends. I like watching these with my daughter, more as something to share than as art or anything. I don't watch them unless she is with me, and would usually rather read. I like the comedy channel when I need to laugh!!!! My favorite tv program of all time is Mork and Mindy. What about you?? All I know for sure is that you like the discovery channel.
I'm off to the produce market. I wish we had an herb lady!!! Have a wonderful day, Del!!! |
