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Poet’s Corner 1

WHY?

04-02-2008

Amy Winehouse, Pete Doherty, and Britney Spears are front page news for no their reason than their various addictions. Brendan Hawthorne wonders what - and who - lurks beneath the headlines.

We need to know why

Some people see more beauty

In a needle full of opiate

Brewed in the bowl of a dirty dessert spoon

In a rented bedsit of squalor

Than in the promises of a civilised nation

We need to know why

Some people prefer a head full of crack

To get through the day

Or a skin full of skunk

To prise open fissures in their personality

And then be labelled as anti-social out-casts

We need to know why

People sleep in the bottoms of spirit bottles

Keeping their nightmares company

Giving their fears more credence

By weakening their immune systems

And killing off their liver

We need to know why

Drinks advertising only shows the good times

And ignores the depressions and the guilt and the lies

And how it can break up families

And wipe out childhoods

With just another-one-for-the-road

We need to know why

Documentaries glamorise

Lad and Ladette cultures

Showing togetherness and belonging

Based on the common grounds of generation

And ingested toxicity levels

We need to know why

Discussions on legality go round in circles

What is and isn’t a good drug

Debates on what’s safe and unsafe are not the issue

It should be enough to see that there are victims

And we need to know why