Cocaine

By John Wieners 1934–2002 John Wieners

For I have seen love

and his face is choice Heart of Hearts,

a flesh of pure fire, fusing from the center

where all Motion is one.

And I have known

despair that the Face has ceased to stare

at me with the Rose of the world

but lies furled

in an artificial paradise it is Hell to get into.

If I knew you were there

I would fall upon my knees and plead to God

to deliver you in my arms once again.

But it is senseless to try.

One can only take means to reduce misery,

confuse the sensations so that this Face,

what aches in the heart and makes each new

start less close to the source of desire,

fade from the flesh that fires the night,

with dreams and infinite longing.

Source: Selected Poems, 1958-1984 (Black Sparrow Books, 1986)

Biography

Born in Boston, poet John Wieners received a BA from Boston College and studied at Black Mountain College with Robert Creeley, Charles Olson, and Robert Duncan. He later followed Olson, his mentor, to SUNY Buffalo. A Beat poet and member of the San Francisco Renaissance, Wieners was also an antiwar and gay rights activist. His poetry combines candid accounts of sexual and drug-related experimentation with jazz-influenced . . .

Continue reading this biography