on smoking

earlier today i was looking at pics of mid-20th C poets like auden with his beautiful craggy face & in nearly all the photos of him he held a cigarette between his fingers 

same for anne sexton & nearly every poet of the past century

smoking was not just common but i think expected behavior for everyone 

now i used to smoke camel cigarettes were my favorite kind of smoke

i enjoyed the ritual of unwrapping the cellophane from the pack of smokes the tapping out a single cigarette the whirl & snap of my zippo lighter brought to the tip end & that first drag of tobacco smoke

there was a mystery to it with smoking & its tools

smoking was so accepted we even made ashtrays out of clay for our parents in elementary school!

but do i miss those days?  not at all

i stopped smoking at the age of 25 & don't miss it 

seeing cigarettes, even in the hands of a cool poet like sexton & auden, looked awkward & harsh

i am not anti-smoking & smokers have at it if you like

perhaps it is just me, but smoking was once thought sexy & outlaw & mainstream, i know!  go figure

smoking to me now is awkward & goofy & unnecessary 

seeing old photos of poets of the last century nearly all to a person with a butt in their hands kinda taken me by surprised by how common it was 

still, sometimes, i long for a few puffs, or at least a whiff of clove cigarettes, which are banned in this country!  really!

because there are three scents that speak to me of my youth & punk rock: dippity-do hair gel, leather & clove cigarettes

& sometimes i'll see an old episode of miami vice & watch ol' crockett peel off the cellophane of a fresh pack of unfiltered lucky strikes & think, damn that looks good!

i'm doomed!