Repining Polemics

NINE am
coffee +
wake up
call rushes
off to a 
gloom/grey
day of break
fast burrito
and picking
out new boots
and winter
coat before
a recording
session +
recovering 
still from snot
rocket city
being built
in sinuses-
I blow
more comes...
Free coffee
at the burrito
house not bad
good for
people watching
A day that's
not even lousy
with people.
My nails still
red a few chips
Blissed from
taking a quality
poo. Just laying
flat
the studio floor-
getting reacquainted
with my dirty t-shirt
and a nice long
day off.
"Should I be
her?" The
M. Monroe
question is asked
not of photographers
but of
self- out
of pose in the wet
wet city so
missing birdsong.
Drops of rain
song so many
grey excuses
crave a misty
morning summer
in a wooded glade
with lush forest
peep and call all
about
the air sweet
as unmelted
Sunday.
Instead- Ill. In
IL. Still. A few
false nights
of sleep is here
for those who 
can take the
current cold
and not pull down
sweats and chills.
I mail a postcard
and go to work.
It's probably what
got me sick OR
all this bike
riding no real
jacket I'm dull
under all the
music and writing
I need to make
For real big
epic too-
the kind I'm going
to get into
anthologies with
someday.
I've got
to pour a glass of
wine and cough
medicine-
evening shot
through with that
high.
Instead- here
among the
arch-o-texture
a black matrix
down out of the
sky up from
under cars- tiny
burnt broken
skeleton extractions
tangle
out from
hair.
Constructions
diminished
into the final
ash
aggregate.
So small.
The snowflakes
of hell.
Vampire
dandruff.
I fear this
minuscule
construction
as carcinogenic
agent
lodging in the
throat and nose
and soft parts
to recklessly
mangle my own
tender helix
deep within.
What of truth
has ever been
so visible?
Of these fragile
manacles
of discarded
dinosaur blood
I give too much
psychological
weight.
They are
matchless with
the magic babble
of birds- exotic
and not- exciting
the very green
in the branches
with thankful
balming call.
They are not
me- digging
out the gear
for basic warmth
cover-ups and 
slip sliding over
wet underfoot
leaf-smear.
Whisky as warm
wet as the
oftener-than-
sometimes
rain.
The gang of
nightime creatures
bubbling
awake, hedging
entrance.
Hard to sit
up straight and
get into
that eveningtime
waltz.
When you do
all go too the
dominoes what
ached to fall.
I don't think
I can take it much
longer. This
town tearing
a hole in my
heart.
I erase number
after number
from my phone
it feels so
good I don't know
why I'm not
throwing the
whole thing into
the lake. Could
be so close to
abandoning
identity.
Running renegade
back to anywhere.
A lump
in a throat
is a knot
in a stomach
and the hot tears
unjam only
if I admit he's not
there. What if he's
not there?
Not even yet born?
I could find him
then find myself
hating myself for
loving him all over
again.
Crazier
than you
like a fox
to try being alone.
It could take years.
But your time
and mine
wave differently.
You will remember
me mostly
because you will
get the notion
that I knew something
then
that you're not sure
you know now. You
only know that it's
now you need to
know it. You will
not go deeper to
the place where
you discover it
was only the basic
gratitude that
was required. Too
much will distracts
from a plain dumb
truth of the present.
I may
once have been
a her that
was more for
others taking. Once
I may have been
happy to be 
leaned or lead
on.
It is a fleeting
happy. I feel
the truth is
that I never really
have been. But
the risk is a 
faith-charge to
be again that
sweet post
for the right
person.
Where
are
they? Him.
With whom I 
eject myself
from the missing
out beyond not
enough cool
stuff happening
to beyond where
I boxed myself
in with work and
sighing upwardly
against the
darkness for more
energy. Made here
the same mistake
as all other friends-
fiends who aren't
punk anymore except
I didn't set out
deliberately to
do this. Aside
all else is this
beautiful
morning- frozen
and bright and
me- another USA-
born diver and
dodger. Fence-sitter
learning bitch tricks
and bad habits
from the who-cares-
less fit-giveaway
crowd.
Stand/sit and
wait in the sun. All
that's left to
do in the 
city is look around
at more city. To
be a flame burning up
barstools. Observe-
thee by thee- a
dance made on corners
way out of the
casket-
Still into the use
of your own
little world. The
best reality is inside.
Indulging all spasms
that do not soften
one so much
as enliven.
And it keeps coming
and coming
and it keeps coming
'til the day it stops.
Who's safe? For the
moment?
So what if I was
a lovely thing
and now I'm not?
That the city
turned me into a
reeking farting
funhouse of lies?
I've got bigger
bridges to burn. All
my chapter
thirteens huddle
into a pleasure forum
of airy dust on old
vinyl. A hopelessly
beautiful melody
seeps in on delayed
guitar. A record
to control time.
Leisure cast
forward or back
over closed tired
eyes imagined
memories. Sometimes.
Sometimes I shine.
I know there is a
light for the darkest
days. Sometimes.
Who?
Two-thousand-wha?
Why, which now?
This year's sloppy
slut update: the one-night
stands the
most satisfying sex
to beat
No expectations of
more, simply the
enjoyment of
another name added
to the list. 3 hot
pussy poundings
in one night- a 
blissful feeling
carried over into the
good sleep of the next,
and the enjoyable
notion that sex
is still sexy, and more
could be coming
my way and if
these dudes I keep
running into keep
having big dicks
then by all
means line them
up. There's only
been one not worth
mentioning and
he moved away,
so we won't
mention
him. I'm really
thrilled to have
ditched mr.
perpetual jealousy
for the duration
and he seems to 
have stayed away.
Life is a lot simpler
without him.

Fumer Peut Vous Tuer

People treat smoking like this cool-kids in-thing lie everyone knows and passes around- a rumor bathed in subterfuge. As a rule, I don't like things like that. I don't like lies or the perpetuation of them, however necessary they sometimes need be.

Addiction is really fucking boring in my opinion, but everyone struggles with it somehow or thru another, and I respect that… but it stinks. Literally. Smoking seems to be an act, as the masses treat it, only perpetuated for the sake of itself and with no higher aim in mind. As if even the possible 'higher aims'- increased concentration and low-level camaraderie with other smokers- could be worth it in the end.

By these standards of abuse, I do not consider myself to be a 'smoker'. I'm a 'chipper'. I chip away.

It will take me months to finish a pack, and I never abandoned that phase where Clove cigarettes stopped being the most satisfying thing I could be bothered with craving. It's even better that 'my brand' isn't available in the States any more. That keeps them foreign and indulgent and at (mostly) further than arms length.

The abuse of tobacco has lead to some heinous health issues we all are aware of and therefore I won't go into here. But only to note that even light use may lead to sickness. As I write this I'm working thru just a touch of malaise for reasons listed in the last paragraph.

I have a note on my wall which I reference from time to time, which doesn't make me feel better, so much as it reminds me of the standards to which I might hold myself inside the idea that:

"If We're Going To Do This Stupid Thing, There Had Best Be Some Fucking Rules"

- Only Outside

- Have some quiet time. Stop and think and observe.
- No bumming.
- Put off the initial desire.
- Only consume the nice stuff.

- Brush your teeth and drink water afterward.

- Never more than 2 a day.

(There's more to the list that I haven't thought of right now, and maybe more will be added.)

And it is this (hopefully) 'judicious use of tobacco that can provide a real punch', to butcher a phrase coined by writer Thom Jones. 

I know how insidious this habit can be, and not only at the start. My brother still struggles with it and used to smoke nearly a pack a day. My dad was told by his doctor "Some people can smoke. You. You can't smoke."

My mom started when she was 15 in the girls bathroom at private school, presumably because most or all of her friends were doing it. All of my grandparents smoked at one point. Two died from complications from lung cancer. An aunt passed away from leukemia that was no doubt exacerbated by her heavy habit.

Right now I'm having a tough time because 2 of my close friends are 'pouch' a day smokers. They roll their own and it is harsh tobacco that has left my throat sore and gives me a cough that leads to a gnarly chest cold. I start to feel a little claustrophobic and like I can't breathe after hanging with them awhile. I don't want to stop seeing them, even as they exchange cigarettes for breakfast.

I just wish they'd smoke a little less. For their health and mine.

But what do you do when you are your own problem? 

What do you tell someone, someone close, who thinks that consuming poison is "A very 'adult' thing to do."?