Morning on the train platform.
The glint, thwack of a Zippo lighter.
Then, the pungent anachronistic scent of lighter fluid wafts along the platform, followed by the sharp sweet smell of clove.
Ah youth. You, conjuring a time past, long before your birth. Don't you know, no one smokes anymore? Yet, you perfume it with a romance. Beware, time future will be less beautiful in the aftermath of this present.
10 May 2011
Smoke
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7 comments:
Dave smokes and I hate it :-(
Awww, makes me want to buy a pack of violet-scented gum and hand'em a stick...
Beautifully written. Carol
Gorgeous.
And... I miss smoking. I really do. It's the one drug to which I would go back in a hot second if I didn't have a partner who loathed it, and to hell with the cancer and the (yucky to others) smell. It brings me peace of mind like nothing else. Really. David Sedaris' essay about smoking "curing" his OCD is really on point-- it really makes the swirling thoughts in my head slow down enough that I can listen.
Oh, smoking.
I can't fathom why they start.
this was a treat -- a poem, really.
I, too, was a clove smoker, in college. Dressed in black. Talked about films and texts, quoted Lacan. Then I started rolling my own cigarettes and the tobacco I preferred was called 'Clouds of Contentment.' I had a bidi period, too, but it was short-lived.
I don't smoke at all anymore and I'm very glad about that, but occasionally I do get a whiff (easy to do here in 'Yurp) of a particular kind of smoke, and it always takes me someplace that's got a story to it.
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