(Because he did it, on national TV, to a room full of people trying to find a solution to the drug problem. And nobody asked - and nobody solved a blessed thing!)

I saw a man the other day
Stand up on TV and to the World say,
This needle in my arm will be the death of me
But I'll not stop until that day be.
And all around him rose a silent roar,
Because nobody asks why any more.

Why do so many throw their life away,
And for their own executioner pay?
Why is a high worth more than a life,
Their own or the one at the end of some knife?
Why would they rather in oblivion reside?
From what do they run, from what do they hide?

I saw a man the other day
Lying in an alley with no more to say.
Some say it was the needle in his arm.
Others blamed the pushers for the harm.
But a dying question in his eye I saw,
"Why doesn't anybody ask why any more"?

D.J. Ludlow © 2000