lockdown ward
drinking a Tangier beer as I leer
at the H-head women from India
who think they are Hindi goddesses
while American Laboratories synthesize junk
for population control
until fiending junkies chase cars
screaming for money
under the city's hidden stars
I curl up with a new edition
of Junky
compleate
illustrated in black & white
and color
I admire my drawings for awhile
a picture of Burrough's
slanted table where he wrote
free-hand
with a fountain pen attached to
an inkwell by a hose
from a hookah
made of living snake
bored with the book
I look through the x-ray bodies
of Hindi H-addicts
who dance while high
because they are Hindi Goddesses
until the H wears off
as they try to kick
here in the lockdown ward
ahh the lockdown ward
with it's muscular attendants
who shoot into the jugular
before tending to the other addicts
locked in rusty cubicles
as surveillance cameras record
from behind barbed wire and steel
as the clinic slowly disintegrates
for good behavior
they permit me to work
with a doctor
whose face is the color
of a white gobstopper
speckled with colorful glitter
for freckles
she's ex navy avionics
with serious analytic skill
convincing
because I don't know her terminology
we ride through the interzone together
as she lectures on medicine
but a screaming addict
chases us down the street
demanding the money we owe
I fear I may have to kick his ass
to prove myself to the doctor
but we leave the addict in the dust
and the doctor only reprimands me for
failing to listen closely