They Say

by Randall Rogers

they say
smoke less
enjoy more
or “too much of everything is just enough”
and denial fueling your thought “might as well, might as well”
time spent not
smoking, a bore
especially the older you get
when the years seem to fly by
like a growing teenager
and it’s been so long your
youthful smoking
propaganda Dragnet fueled episodes
and young seventies growing up kid
‘guilt’ vanished or vanishing
facing more yesterdays than tomorrows
your early experience with the herb
morphed into a six spliff
five pack
a day habit,
and you’re like the unBeatling of George Harrison
challenging
lung cancer or heart attack
to “come and get you”
saying to friends with a deep breath
and a loud exhale
“ah, I can feel the cancer in my lungs already”
and lighting up another one
of a non-stop burning of thirty or fifty of them
resting in astray, though mostly
dangling between lips being sucked on
while the lunged creature is
typing
puffing
imaging the personification of George Orwell
dying of your habit
from your habit
shot through the neck but
still smoking, writing, dying
prone though propped up
puffing and hand written scribbling
in a note book
or typing on an old Royal
in bed
getting it down
till dead