[Newspoetry] Shakespeare In Dope

[Mike Lehman]

Billy S. knocked his clay pipe out on the edge of the table. If the boat
didn't get in from Calcutta soon, the whole damn town, as in London
Town, would be out of hashish. It was all the rage in the balconies at
the new theater, but as everyone knew, it started in the dressing room,
like all hip habits.

"Damn me for not setting a little more aside" he thought to himself,
while unscrewing the stem to rod out the fine, red oil that he had
discovered always came about after smoking a couple of plates of the
hand-rubbed opiated black.

Back to work on the play. "If only I could come up with the right words"
passed through his mind as he toked the first little drop of oil. He set
a drop of the red-tinged oil on the screen in the bowl, firing it up to
a crackling fizzle as his lungs filled. Coughing hard, he realized he'd
have to learn caution with this stuff!

"This Hamlet fellow seems to have some serious problems with motivation.
If only he could be or not to be as stoned as I am right now..." he
blubbered out, as he stumbled over his words in the haze of vaguely
greenish smoke that hung in the room.

"That's it!" he exclaimed. "Damn, that sounds just like what Hamlet
would say!" as he bent over the script, dipping his quill pen in a jar
of hemp ink.