#poetry - On Stepping Out for a Smoke

I crushed an empty box
   of Marlboro Reds---
It was such a good box,
   and felt good under my foot,
but it was no match
   for my weight...

   ...wait, what did I just say?

#fiction - A Good Friday

well i was feeling pretty good. i had just had dinner with my brother, his treat. he also got me coffee and some cigarettes. the day had been very productive otherwise as well.

the start of it had its fair share of road blocks. i woke at 5 am. i took my coffee, after my shower. i suited up. had a small breakfast. read a few pages from ian mcellan's ENDURING LOVE. pulled my ipod from the charger and was out the door by 6. there was already 3 inches of snow and the start of a blizzard. so i had to walk through that to get to the bus terminal.

i'm staying these days in fall river, about sixty miles south east of boston, where i work. its an hour commute by bus each way. not a big deal normally. but today, the 6:40 bus was thirty minutes late. in that time, the counter salesperson traded stories with the regulars about the inefficiencies of the 6:40 driver. the first stop on the route to boston is in newport. its about 25 minutes normally between newport and fall river. this driver is known for taking fall river tickets, loading the bus, then disappearing into the fall river bathroom for 15 minutes everyday before launching on toward boston. so that's what we were talking about while he was running 30 minutes behind through the snow.

then the bus came. we loaded up. i took my shoes off to dry out my socks from the walk. thankfully the heat was on full blast and this would work out fine. the driver, 30 minute delay notwithstanding, maintained his fall river ritual and disappeared for 15 minutes in the fall river bus terminal bathroom. there were many groans about this. i didn't hear all of them because i put paul simon into my ears, reclined and fell asleep.

i like my cigarettes

i like my cigarettes and their memories
how i paled and felt green the first time
and walked on my hands and knees upstairs

but how many sunrises with a cigarette and coffee
and how many evenings spread out past the midnight hour
and how many strangers came calling hello and were friends

the cigarette is a death and a life also
where the fork in the road
says no quiz today kid just go right

there is so much tobacco in a discarded cigarette
i need never buy my own
but gather butts and amass a pile of brown gold.

i am a harvester sometimes of tobacco
plant no crops but i go out walking everyday
and gather the buds and take my drags as reward

i am wrought with sadness knowing the day is near
when i must quit and forget even these memories.