I wrote this poem, because I heard about the 7" record that was made, that was about a girl in Australia who overdosed and died on ecstacy; it was a hardcore techno (similar to gabber) album, and on the B-side it had a picture of Anna Wood, a girl who died of hyponetremia (water intoxication) caused by ecstacy use. And the picture caption said: "I am Having The Best Night of My Life." I later find another girl who died of ecstasy use, named Rachel Whitear, and I saw a picture of her dead on the ground, crumpled up in her room, probably found by her parents. Her body was so discolored she did not even look like once a young, typical English schoolgirl (note: she was white; judging by the photo you would guess she was actually black, but she became so discolored).
Her parents released the photograph because they wanted people to be aware of the horror. Look at it if you want:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/194500..._death_300.jpg
(here is
her before death)
Friday night at a punk rock concert I drank a lot -- I had a 40 ounce on the subway down, and then had a 4-5 bottles of beer, and an old Korean man bought for me and him two bottles of Soju (about 8 shots a piece, the soju is about 60-70 proof), and I danced to punk & skinhead music, and then I went outside to piss on a dumpster and have a moment in thought... And I realized that...
If you do drugs, you are innocent, and it is a cry for a good time, and that we all simply wanted a good time, and that drug use was a desire for the good. I thougt... This is so terrible that people who are so young die of as much.
And I say about drugs these poems:
NOTE: anything with a number in paranthesis has a note at the bottom.
Collapsed.
Crumpled on the floor.
I wanted a good time, I wanted to feel alive.
It was the best night of my life.
discolored. purple.
Bury me, but before you do,
love me gently.
I was your family & friend,
too young to know better, too innocent to care,
too fast to live, too young to die, (1)
trapped in a crumpled moment on a floor as a used towel.
I was your daughter,
remember my smile and love me gently before I go.
----
(2)
Do not worry about falling in love(3) or the marks you earn in your schools,
do not worry for an instant about the degrading glances of peers or a teacher's glare --
for moments on our fridays and saturdays, please become free;
test results and derisive opinions mean nothing to me.
Last friday your face was bright and carefree,
now it is strained and forced, there is a pain in your smile and a tear in your eye --
Do not worry about falling in love, and do not worry about other's impressions.
Do not worry about school or colleges or exams, do not even think.
I will be your clown and say a thousand stupid things --
I will hold out your drinks with both hands and beg you to take them;
I will wra[ my arm around you during the punk bands, and together we'll knock others aside;
Whatever it means, it is our friday and saturday, and it is a human right for you to be happy tonight.
It's only Friday once a week. (5)
----
this is the best night of my life, and I will remember it forever, the feeling of dancing and being elevated.
A light, a sound, a beat, an urgent feeling in my feet and a shiver in my ribs & spine
A noise that is close and loud and a half-smile from a shadowy dancer.
Suspended in a moment of Zen that the Buddha would dismiss as hallucination.
I am Bacchus, the lover of life, (5)
and for a moment I am a King. Nothing matters but this time.
A history of transgressions -- a future of failures
they are erased. Perfectly.
We are as innocent as a dog begging his owner.
--
You are only young once, but you remember it forever(7)
and there is a wrinkle in your hands and your smile,
and there is a sentimentle picture of you and faces -- faces so old you nearly forgot, but never could,
and when you see the faces it is as ghosts awake in your brain.
Do you remember the smell of tequila and the taste of salt?
Do you remember the feeling of other person's sweaty arms and shoulders against your own?
Do you remember the awkward moments before your favorite band began to play, and your heart screamed and you wanted to explode?
Elbows and fists were nothing because a bus or train could not hurt you.
Immortal & young forever, trapped in a moment of God's eternal smiles.
You were young once, and you will remember it forever,
because you were a punk rocker and it means more to have spent a year of youth as a punk than a century as the normal guy
You were young once, and you will remember it forever,
because your hair was spiked or bald or however you wanted it,
and no one could tell you otherwise.
You were young once, and you will remember it forever,
because you listened to songs that explained your heart over ferocious guitars, basses, and drums
You were young once, and you will remember it forever,
because you were a punk rocker, and that is the only thing that matters --
as you approach your final years and see the autumn leaves brightly colored and falling from trees,
no matter what, you are going to smile,
Because you were young once, and when you were young ----
You were as a brightly colored autumn leaf:
Showing a true color and waiting to plummet to the earth,
always unsecure but never caring, ready to be stirred by the wind of a friday night,
ready to fall, confident in yourself and seeing beauty in All
Because you were young once, you will remember it forever, and you were and always will be a punk rocker.
----------
NOTES:
(1) "Too fast to live, too young to die" is a popular patch amongst punk rockers in Asia. It means: "(I am/you are)too fast to live, too young to die (because you are young and quick, and you are a punk rocker for life)."
(2) Those words was about two friends who failed college entrance exams, and to this date, (weeks later), are depressed and unwilling to come out. I ecstatically plea and I am overjoyed on the phone, saying, "Oh please, come out, come out, we want to see you" but they object and do not come.
They are both special folks in punk scene, who are really funny and happy normally making jokes, but now so stoic and sad; so it is personal forme.
(3) "Do not worry about falling in love" was taken from a song going through my head by Shorty Cat. In Korean, it was: "Sa-rang eun na-rel wee hae keok-jeong hajima." (Do not worry about me falling in love). It's a good song called 'All The Time.'
(4) Bacchus was just a lover of life.
(5) "It's only friday once a week" is taken from the Ultima Thule song 'Friday Evening.'
Other notes:
The poems are about being a punk rocker and dealing with facts of life, and this night I drank a lot and I heard some of my favorite songs, and I want to say:
I am and will be myself, and there wont be a shame, and there wont be a filter in my brain to sort out the bad or the good, but just a pouring out of a human perspective.
A human perspective should be naked, a human perspecive should be honest enough to never care what another thinks, and a human perspective should be as courageous as a fish.
A human perspective admits when its wrong, but sometimes it doesn't even know -- and a human perspective is as Jean-Jacques Rousseau's noble savage:
It is wild and free, and by virtue of this, it is honest and incapable of telling a lie --
a noble savage is truth, and truth is the answer to the lies we say and the painful portraits people make.
So I say:
I was young once and I was shaved into youth cults of punk and skinhead, and I was beaten and I was strengthened by an international society of serious cunts without straight faces, and straight faced cunts without serious thoughts.
And no one can take away the endless fridays and saturdays of glory unending, and the contortion on your face when you hear your favorite song.
I'll always smile and I'll die happy because I was young once and I went to a concert at age 13 in the basement of a bar, and there were some older kids who strummed guitars and the sound meant more than life itself because it was the manifestation of who I was in a single concept, idea, and shape.
If we had to define ourselves in words, I could not, but if you let me define myself, I could give you a photograph that will forever tell you who I was and what I was doing:
This is me, and this is my life, and this is the glory unending of an underground rock & roll scene.