Connolly Ryan
We Drugged
We drugged the ghetto
to numb its rage and plant
bitterness without end.
We drugged the freedom rebellion
which degenerated into orgies
and medicated slogans.
We drugged the avenues
with gentrification or
cultural genocide if you will.
We drugged the sidewalks
with stop and frisk and bend over now boy.
We drugged the prisons
with more black men
than there were slaves.
We drugged our children
when daydreaming and restlessness
was deemed counter-productive
yet marvelously lucrative for over-the-counter dealers.
We drugged the farmers with big machines.
We drugged agriculture with agribusiness.
We drugged the topsoil with heresy.
We drugged our community with hearsay.
We drugged neighborhoods with suspicion.
We drugged our cats and dogs
in the name of loyalty and love:
Loyalty to our own malaise,
Love for the pills that manage it.
We drugged our schools with plastic tests
on which both spontaneity and innovation gag
and on which ennui and detachment thrive.
We drugged our husbands and wives
with techno-surrogates for intimacy.
We drugged our elderly parents
with bewildering isolation.
We drugged the sky with lemon-scented
demon-fumes and stainless steel cowardice.
We drugged the manna with Mammon.
Drugged the land with syrups of piracy.
Drugged the forests with disappearance.
Drugged the beasts with erasure.
Drugged birds with drugged bugs.
Drugged our hopes with rape and plague.
Drugged love with God’s consent.
Drugged God in the name of hate.
We drugged evolution with nostalgia.
We’ve even drugged our pursuit
of happiness and then slyly replaced it
with an eagerness for emptiness
as we carefully scream
into our fiendish screens
and morph into the final drug.
Connolly Ryan’s poems have recently appeared in The Good Men Project, The Valley Advocate, The Opiate, Vagabond City, and Gravel, among other journals. He holds a BA in English and an MFA in Poetry from UMass Amherst, were he is a senior lecturer in the Commonwealth Honors College Honors Seminar Series and also teaches courses in Contemporary American Popular Culture and Metaphor and Creativity.
SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.
If you want to support the mission and work of Indolent Books, consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Indolent Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity.
Join our mailing list to receive news, updates, and special offers from Indolent Books.