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Wanna have a poem popularized by having it sued through American
courts?
Yes! ?
Then write a non-fictional address, disguised as a poem,
To all and whoever else it may concern,
That runs like this (and leave the dots out!) :
What Had Unleashed The Wave Of Massive Drug Addiction In This Modern World?
At the turn of the 19th to 20th century, it chanced to happen that
More & more innovations
By freaky inventor-scientists of the Modern World
Came tumbling in,
Pepping up, around the globe,
Wealthier people's taste for mechanized comforts in life,
Most especially so, and also,
In this new-world melting pot country there overseas,
This new country of hopes for the many
Of meanwhile emporealistic high global acclaim,
That until to-date couldn't have found
A name proper for itself,
Still calling themselves simply united states of America.
(What, if in a European context
The French should have said, if the Germans had opted
To call themselves
U.S.E, as an example? !)
Better comforts in life also meant
To come up with a new class of
Delicious and enjoyable thirst-quencher drinks,
Given to the masses,
And they had contrived and, bottled up en masse,
Put out on the tables of all homes,
Something unique, a Black Liquid as drink.
They came to call it after one of the juice's main ingredients -
Latin America's coca plant, a traditional locals' cheer-up medicine,
And, as we all know,
Its name has become so much of a standard,
Meanwhile, all over the globe.
Co.a-Co.a was said by a smiling certain actress,
- Hillary, or so, her name, -
It was yet before the year 1900 -
In a funny ad of the day,
To be 'an exhilarating and invigorating drink'.
Then afterwards on came the stern Puritans sweeping in,
And in basic conflict with major business interests,
The high aspiring drink plant was to give in
Chosing to replace their chemistry of
The original Co.a-Co.a formula
By taking the 'flavour's stress off its 'exhilarating' component -
To the effect that thus plain 'invigorated'
NewWorld coolant imbibers
Were left, and still are so, everafter,
When enjoying the mysterious black juice,
With a subtle craving for the 'exhilaration' of the old days,
With this craving subconsciously mounting up over time
Into one mass movement of undistilled desires.
The tickle of its primeval coka inebriation
The said sad drink, it still holds,
The satisfaction of which but has ultimately passed away
With the coming of the new lighter, and,
A hundred years later now into time,
All the more so, with the new
Expressedly 'light' you-name-it-what.
Co.a-Co.a drinkers of yore,
When the new Co.e was to be taking over then,
Over one hundred years ago,
Must have felt themselves betrayed,
From one day to the other
Left with a sheer toothless version of their old-time favourite.
Instinctively, huge numbers of people,
When victims of mass disappointment
Tend to easily identify themselves as
One large group of same-minded,
Eventually more and more of them
Setting out for amending the loss they were made to suffer.
And thus also then, it simply had to happen
That those thirsty souls of then,
Suddenly then deprived of their old Co.a-Co.a 'exhilarant',
Over time were to go and find for themselves
Their wanted additives that make up for
That fun state of one's life's -,
That selfsame fun which once upon a time
Cheering Co.e bibbing fans of great American poetesse
Ella Wheeler Wilcox' time,
Were quite happy with.
And lo! washing in came all over the thirsty countrysides
Abundantly, and even overly so,
All the many natural & chemical
Enlivener stuffs, -
This time not from one single manufacturing plant anymore that
Could have been put under pressure as before,
But instead from syndicated interests of towers of power,
Tested well enough any time to be
Outsmarting any administrational-vested anti-agents -
Plus, along the surge of these potents' wash-over
Came all the many dreaded physical addictives and givers of confusion & paranoia,
A focused theme problem of today, called 'illicit drugs'
Of world-wide extent,
Of which it is no fun, but rather appalling to speak.
Whereas I, for one, had silently always hoped that they
- At length at a land that had arrived
At a 'lend-a-cock-to-your-coax'
For its mind-relishing people -
Would have been as smart,
Ready right in for the year 2000,
To chip in back the original pioneers Co.a-Co.a formula,
As THE Century Promo Gimmick of the millennium, and:
And I bet you what,
This would have been THE great savior to relieve the burdens of
This drugs-infested new millennium
They're still hassling themselves with,
No end in sight to the unforgiving damages
Done to young and old!
'Why further dive underworld for an illegal, dangerous high,
When we've gotten back our old original Co.a-Co.a? ',
Why were we contemporaries not allowed to
Hear that type of applause,
We the kids of a new era?
Atalanta, the golden apple has been dashed your way,
Dashed again by your horse-minded sprint contest partner Hippomenes!
He's wooing you and he will be outrunning you once more.
Better be shrewder this time, Atalanta!
Take up the golden apple, yes, you can!
But give in to your marriage, right at the winning post!
And lasting happiness will be beginning
Right from the end of the old spell.
* * * *
(You may want to read more on the invention of this black drink in 1886 and of its inventor, U.S. pharmacist John Stith Pemberton. You may get its story at http: //www.cocaine.org/coca-cola/index.html.
My informations on the black juice's original formula are based on an article I read about it in an old National Geographic Magazine issue from the '50s, which sadly cannot be retrieved anymore, I believe. In that lengthy article of then, there was also a copy of that advertisemnt header with an image of a then famous U.S. actress, by the name of something like Hill, if not Hillary, I just can't recall anymore exactly, under whose little drawn picture with her smiling face was her promo statement, that is mentioned in my non-fictional poem. I recollect the year 1903 as the year the article had mentioned that the original drink formula was eventually replaced - its inventor John Pemberton not having lived up to that time anymore...)
Erhard Hans Josef Lang
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