Skip to main content

O is for Opium.....

A favorite of Romantic-Era poets, opium is the dried latex of the opium poppy fruit. The poppy fruit is scored, allowing the milky latex to ooze out. Once it dries, the darkened substance collected is raw opium. The latex contains codeine and up to 12 % morphine, which is frequently processed to produce heroin.

For the collection of Romantic poets, there was a belief that opium heightened the senses, allowing the poets to recreate vivid scenes and images that presented themselves while the poet relaxed in a dream-like stupor. Coleridge's Kubla Khan was said to have been written after one such experience.

Novelists and other literary figures of the time, paint opium in a far less favorable light. Edgar Allan Poe thrusts his narrator in the short story, Ligeia, into such a distraught stupor that he can no longer distinguish fantasy from reality. Other nineteenth century writers feature the drug and its use in connection with crime and lower class foreign immigrants

Opium Specter

A wisp, a whiff, a vivid dream,
a ghost, a haunt, a lurid scheme,
a spook, a wraith, a macabre dance,
a fiend, a shade, a squandered chance.

                                                                                         --- e.a.s. demers

Labels:

Comments

  1. nutschellApril 19, 2012 at 12:50 PM

    thanks for the pictures! I've never really seen what opium looks like:)
    Nutschell
    www.thewritingnut.com
    Happy A-Zing!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. e.a.s. demersApril 29, 2012 at 6:39 PM

      You're very welcome! Have fun on the challenge! :-)

      Delete

Post a Comment

Share your thoughts!

Popular posts from this blog

A to Z reflections....

Another A to Z challenge comes to an end--- another collection of posts and poetry have been written, another deep breath of relief is released. For my fellow bloggers that survived as well, it's another 'challenge-completed' notch carved into the writing desk. I've come to enjoy my yearly foray into the world of all things alphabetical. This was my third year, though it was only the second year I had a workable theme (which made the challenge substantially easier than the first year I attempted this challenge.) And, though my first year was difficult because my focus was so scattered, I found this year was more  difficult because I lost the enthusiasm that came with the first year excitement----excitement which helped me plug along until the end of the challenge. Year 3 was a success in the sense that I completed the challenge, though, this was the year that almost wasn't---- Somewhere about a third of the way through the challenge, I seriously considered
27 comments
Read more

A million lives, beneath a single sky.....

Though our feet leave different prints,our tongues sound different words, there's a mirrored rhythm in the beating of our hearts. Though born in different worlds, our eyes sharpened 'neath different moons, there's an unspoken truth in the warmth of our touch. We may walk in different strides and dream different dreams, we may speak in different voices, maybe swim in different streams. It's plain to see, when dark night falls, as all the stars shine through, that underneath it all, there's no difference 'tween me and you.
17 comments
Read more

Bitter Honey

Weaving dreams of beguiling gold, a future's price for happiness. What secrets do you, determined, hold? asks the summer wind's soft caress. A guarded name, a hidden hope. Spinning wheels clutching time, grasping straw that falls away, What dreams may come, we soon may find, won't recall at end of day. A cherished life, a memory lost.
18 comments
Read more