Wasted (for Charles Baudelaire)

Wasted
(for Charles Baudelaire)

One must be forever stoned: that is the sole reason for living. If you wish to move beyond the inevitable feelings you generally associate with the horrible burden of Time as it bruises your body and bends you toward the soil beneath the earth, you must be stoned without cease. But how? With weed, with prose poems, with irreparable desire, with what you please. But be high. And if sometimes, on the steps of a recreational dispensary, or on the perfectly manicured green grass in a popular city park that's easy to score the bud you desire, or even in the dull loneliness of your studio where you lack the necessary inspiration to trigger your ineluctable new work of art, you wonder why it has all come to this, an attempt to alter the faux representation of what has been handed to you as real, you should confidently approach the fragmented chip of potent wax that awaits your vapor torch and, without a moment's hesitation, wake up to your vibrant surroundings and inhale the centuries. If, after a time, your total wastedness should already be waning or gone, ask of the wind, of the wave, of the cloud, of the star, of the kiteboard, of the iWatch; ask of all that scurries, all that sighs, all that floats, all that spins, all that screams, all that articulates, ask of these the hour; and wind and wave and cloud and star and kiteboard and watch will answer you: "It is the hour to be baked! Lest you be the martyred slave of Time, you must totally cook yourself, so be stoned without cease! With weed, with prose poems, with irreparable desires, or with whatever cannabis-laced edible is easiest to ingest."

The short work above is an excerpt from a forthcoming collection of short fictions written in parallel to the legalization of marijuana in states such as Colorado (where I live most of the year) and Oregon (where I maintain an active studio practice during the summer). More excerpts forthcoming in other venues and media ...

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Keywords: Colorado, marijuana, fiction, art, culture, literature