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The Poetry Warrior (c) Abigail Beaudelle - 2008.
All Poetry and artwork (c) the respective artists.
All Poetry and artwork (c) the respective artists.
Because They Taste Good Like a
Cigarette Should, That's Why
Ryan Roenfeld
I like to watch them best
at 10, noon, and a quarter after two:
the coughing congregation
huddled about
in stoic clouds of smoke
rising out of the downtown drizzle.
Ah, that's the sweet nicotinia
of our filthy worship.
A circle accepting without scorn
or disgusted glance,
color or creed,
as brokers and Burger Kings
and Chinese mathematicians
are brought together in their
own cult or obscure tong, perhaps the
Obnoxious Sot-weed of the Yellow Fingers.
Both sage and simpleton,
Bull Durham promised
sexy moments of morning expectoration,
stained walls with stained curtains
and a dull tint to the outside world through
stained windows. That yellow patina and
constant stale odor of 1940s noir
far more dramatic in black and white than old ivory,
maybe even the Curse of Ebenezer Cooke,
co-starring Marlene Dietrich.
She will tell us lies and blow clouds of certain death into the camera
and, inadvertently, into the audience
to provoke a second-hand lawsuit for sure.
I think that it's all second-hand.
Arikara visions never contemplated
$4.75 a pack, including cellophane,
and taylor-made branded to
each of society’s segments,
cloves and Gauloises most of all.
That's why R.J. Reynolds knows that
I am not a cowboy killer type of guy and
only old men smoke Camels in my mind so
just make sure and cut my traech narrow, Doc,
so that I can puff through it
and get them on special from the Missouri cancer stores.
With that they dropped their butt on the ground,
stepped on it,
and walked away in the rain,
consoling themselves with
sad fantasies of someone's uncle
who smoked two packs daily for
forty odd years only to quit cold-turkey
and get run over by a bus the very next day.
Cigarette Should, That's Why
Ryan Roenfeld
I like to watch them best
at 10, noon, and a quarter after two:
the coughing congregation
huddled about
in stoic clouds of smoke
rising out of the downtown drizzle.
Ah, that's the sweet nicotinia
of our filthy worship.
A circle accepting without scorn
or disgusted glance,
color or creed,
as brokers and Burger Kings
and Chinese mathematicians
are brought together in their
own cult or obscure tong, perhaps the
Obnoxious Sot-weed of the Yellow Fingers.
Both sage and simpleton,
Bull Durham promised
sexy moments of morning expectoration,
stained walls with stained curtains
and a dull tint to the outside world through
stained windows. That yellow patina and
constant stale odor of 1940s noir
far more dramatic in black and white than old ivory,
maybe even the Curse of Ebenezer Cooke,
co-starring Marlene Dietrich.
She will tell us lies and blow clouds of certain death into the camera
and, inadvertently, into the audience
to provoke a second-hand lawsuit for sure.
I think that it's all second-hand.
Arikara visions never contemplated
$4.75 a pack, including cellophane,
and taylor-made branded to
each of society’s segments,
cloves and Gauloises most of all.
That's why R.J. Reynolds knows that
I am not a cowboy killer type of guy and
only old men smoke Camels in my mind so
just make sure and cut my traech narrow, Doc,
so that I can puff through it
and get them on special from the Missouri cancer stores.
With that they dropped their butt on the ground,
stepped on it,
and walked away in the rain,
consoling themselves with
sad fantasies of someone's uncle
who smoked two packs daily for
forty odd years only to quit cold-turkey
and get run over by a bus the very next day.