Blast from my Past

     Other than songs lyrics, one of my 1^st poems was written in my creative writing class called, “Tracks of the Needle Nose.” It was about drug use, and though I had never done drugs, I was called into the office because of my accurate treatment of hard drug use and addiction. I thought that was what I was supposed to do, but they didn’t think anyone could get their head around such a topic without experiencing it. They checked me over for the tracks I spoke of, and naturally I was clean, but while supposedly trying to encourage me toward discovering my creative self, I was almost suspended!

     Maybe my topic was too harsh for ‘69, but shooting up was just as dangerous then as it is now. The Man (Big Brother) was trying to save me from the drug cultures, protesting Earth’s exploitations, and from continuing in my hippie ways, but they failed. I got around to pot (it was an herb, not a gateway drug), the protests continued, and I had been a hippie inside for a couple years by then, and that was not going to change.

     The poem was confiscated, and was lost, but "The Tracks of the Needle Nose" has not been forgotten. It was an diabolical animated syringe, that I remember, and it was my first writing in the monster genre.