Last Rites of a Shook Monkey
for the Wharf Rats

If this is preaching, it’s from the pulpit Jerry built
in rehab before his last breath.

If this is preaching, it’s for those who reached
between the feet
to pull the plug
from Jim Morrison’s tub.

If this is preaching, it’s for the families
of the six who die
deaths of despair each day
in my state. It’s for those
sons and daughters
cleaning out their parent’s houses,
smashing in trash bins
secret stashes.

If this is preaching, it comes down
from the altar of fear. Fear my daughter
will get hooked like me, age 15.

If this is preaching, it must be
the beer commercial
between the liquor scene.

If this is preaching, I must be
the battery acid bubbling
from the megaphone
of Big Alcohol in the boardroom
praying you keep
poisoning yourself
“responsibly”.

If this is preaching, I’m the mock
funeral for the Summer of Love.
I’m the casket paraded
down The Haight. I’m the buzzcut
riding clean behind cowboy Neil Cassidy —
isn’t the point of LSD
to see something you can believe?

No, this ain’t preaching,
I got ordained by my dealer,
got this smug tone from the plug,
got my weed card
in the parking lot of Sonic.
I pass-pass-coughed the chronic,
I collapsed my lungs on hydroponic –
I return it all to sender,
back to my budtender.

If this is liturgy, it’s from the lips
of the mockingbird who sits
atop the ATM,
who knows your PIN.

If this is communion, it’s the water
bruised faceless from the wine.

If this is eulogy, it’s me moving
through my excuses.

If this is lecture, who’s to blame
for your dismay? Even Bob Marley
says you’re running and your running
and your running away, but you can’t
run away from yourself.

If this is a sermon, it’s what burns
between every line of Bukowski.
It’s what I’d say in my mind all mousey
hiding high from my family.

If this is sermon, trust me, I earned it:
every car seat until now
my cherry’s burned it.
Visine, Clear Eyes, breath mints,
every cover up — I worked it.

If this is sermon, the Yellow Submarine of bile
can’t break the surface — but naw, ya’ll, that’s a lie,
that’s fatalistic, to break the spell
you don’t need no rock and roll mystic,
or delphic oracle, you just need to hear me —
addiction’s treatable.

If this is religion, the burning bush
snuffs the bowl, and baseless bravado
lies at the bottom of every bottle,
and every bong hit bounces
your locus of control
from the wake and vape
bistro of your brain
so convincingly, so
insistently — please don’t miss this,
I used to think booze and weed
made me free, now I see
there’s nothing free
about a monkey, on that there’s no
bustin’ me, claws on your tired
shoulders diggin’ in — Dry January?!
that’s no means to an end,
that’s extending a leash
to a fair-weather friend.

If this is miracle, it’s thuribles
inhaling smoke, suffocating
those buzzing coals — hold a hit
long enough, it holy ghosts.

If this is born again, it’s Sylvia Plathian, as in
poems are a way back from the dead.

If this is confession, I’m an alcoholic
and a fiend. Before those labels
I had no spine — now owning those words
my blueprint of inner smile.

If this is antiphonal, if you work it,
it works.

If this is beatific vision, it’s the first trickle
trickling past the cul of my former me
in order to form a whole new sea.

~~~

Notes on the dedication for “Last Right of a Shook Monkey”

The Wharf Rats are a group of Grateful Dead fans who have chosen to live drug and alcohol free. The group formed in the early 1980s and is named after the Grateful Dead song “Wharf Rat”. The song tells the story of a wino named August West who chooses alcohol over everything else. The Wharf Rats wanted to create a safe space for Deadheads who wanted to enjoy the music without the influence of drugs or alcohol.

The Wharf Rats began as friendships between Deadheads who were bonded by the Grateful Dead music and their mutual recovery from drug and alcohol addiction. Some members feared disclosing their status as Deadheads at AA and NA meetings. They also had to be very vigilant at Dead shows.

The Wharf Rats have a combined at least 100 years of sobriety and have attended more than 1000 Dead shows.