Klipschutz
The Smokers
We’ve driven them out of the bar, office, lobby.
They loiter and huddle, well-dressed refugees,
Enslaved to their need like a king to his army.
There but for the face of my father goes me.
Eyes closed, they lean back, almost meditative,
No foretaste of dread, no patina of shame -
Inhale and reflect, recycle and savor,
Lighting up one from another’s dead flame.
Who do they love? Can’t they tell Defendant
From Plaintiff from ad from official report?
The tide runs against antisocial behavior.
(A drifter was held without bail by the court.)
Joe Camel is dead, Long Live Joe Camel!
A penis as smooth as a cigarette is.
Life is a crapshoot, each breath a new gamble.
Why bet with the house? Carcinoma? Showbiz.
Color me sexy and bored, hold the tumor.
(How do the clean-air crusaders unwind?)
I want my Maypo! I want my own rumor!
They say he kept sables and drank himself blind!
Okay, so it’s base and perverse, even sinful,
A weakness at best, a death wish. Understood.
The Lord’s Prayer redeems at the Devil’s own table.
It doesn’t work like that in my neighborhood.
Klipschutz lives in once-and-future servant quarters in a basement in San Francisco. One book: The Good Neighbor Policy; three manuscripts (‘Twilight of the Male Ego’; ‘This Drawn and Quartered Moon’; ‘Premeditations’). He writes songs with Chuck Phrophet, whose latest release is The Hurting Business (Cooking Vinyl, UK).
Page(s) 89
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