Wanted In Thirty-eight States

Coming back from midtown Subway Sunday slow
A Train to Brooklyn
A younger older man
He asks,
"Are you famous?"
Like Ulysees to the cyclops I say,
"I am no one."
He begs to differ.
"You are someone.
My name is Prince.
From East New York.
I done twenty-five.
For five murders.
The po-lice shot me in the head.
My wife pulled out the bullet.
No hospital."
"When?"
"1986."
The crack years.
Young boys in wheelchairs,
The Rock on East 11th Street,
Gunshots in the night.
Day too.
He had a story.
Many.
"I been out fourteen years.
Never going back.
My wife ran the money.
I was a boss.
I was wanted in 38 states.
My name Prince."
We shook hands
His hand was rough.
I ran the numbers.
He had to be 60.
Almost half his life
Behind walls
Still smiling
Thinking I was famous
I decided to be honest.
"I'm not anyone but I'm not nobody too. Do you want to be not nobodies too "
I love Emily Dickinson.
So did Prince,

"Then we can be not nobodies together."

We didn't know each other
But we knew our Emily Dickinson
And me my Rilke.
Poetry time another time.

"387 Myrtle."

Him

"2078 Pitcairn."

We punched knuckles.
At Fulton Street.
Another time
Another smile
We both alive.
And free.
Free as a smile can make us.

His name is Prince. Mine.
Mine is no one.

Toronto's Crackhead Voting Bloc

More proof that the War on Drugs has been lost by the forces of Law and Order came with Toronto's mayor publicly admitting to smoking the pipe on a drinking binge.

Yes, I have smoked crack cocaine. There have been times when I've been in a drunken stupor. That's why I want to see the tape. I want everyone in the city to see this tape. I don't even recall there being a tape or video. I want to see the state that I was in."

Calls for his resignation were countered by a 5% upswing in his approval rating, yet Rob Ford has refused to leave office, "I was elected to do a job and that's exactly what I'm going to continue doing."

Mayor Ford also added, "Folks, I have nothing left to hide. I would do anything, absolutely anything to change the past, but the past is the past and we must move forward."

A little more than 1% of Canadians used crack in 2012 according to surveys.

Judging from that 5% uptick I reckon that Rob Ford is depending on the crackhead voting bloc to solidly support his re-election attempt as long as the Mayor came out in favor of legalizing cocaine, so that Toronto could flourish with the job creation from the opening of crack dens throughout the city.

Personally I've never used the stuff.

But no man's poison is another man's cure.