By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes

MY FAMILY THINKS I’M A POT FARMER

Got to wonder
if my family has a contact high
when they call out of purple haze
to ask if I’m a marijuana farmer

Hydroponically speaking
I don’t have a pot to piss in
not that I’m opposed
to organic chemotherapy
or the buzz of tax revenues
instead of drug wars

Must be the long hair of poetry
that made them hallucinate
buds on balcony

I haven’t lit a bowl
since midnight movies
at The Strand
where the ’60’s
kept on tie-dying into trickle down poverty
way before I went to seed
smoking, “the opiate of the masses”

Maybe I should read between the lines
on their mirrors

What if
they got the munchies and are phishing
for a quick fix?

Jonesing
because they sold themselves out
to America’s wet dream?

Most of my family hit the wall on Wall Street
after inhaling too much of the green stuff
while their city streets
were overtaken by weed

Better to get stoned
than to stone their own flesh and blood because they are living
lives of noisy desperation
chasing five lanes of highway
speeding toward another fiscal
cliff

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Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes

Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes was born and raised in San Diego, California. He attended Herbert Hoover High School and went on to study Religion and Theology at the University of San Diego. His book Intimate Geography, published by Ragged Sky Press, won the 2012 San Diego Book Award for Poetry. Ish, as he is known, has also written lyrics for German musicians Andrea Hörkens and Thomas Roderburg (Tender Art).

Latest posts by Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes (see all)

• Word’s Out | Geo-Poetic Spaces - December 14, 2018
• Political Love Affair | Geo-Poetic Spaces - December 7, 2018
• Deer Tracks | Geo-Poetic Spaces - November 30, 2018