Cigarettes As Steroids:

A Confessional Cut-Priced Poem

(or personal ad).

The writing people loved me for,

And paid me for, was the writing

I did when I smoked

But they hated when I smoked

And I knew my body didn’t

Really appreciate it much either,

Though I also knew it wouldn’t

Really like it if I couldn’t afford

An apartment or clothes.

So I kept on smoking

And did enough other things

For my body to make up for it,

Like drinking more water

And dancing and eating less

Junk-food TV than most

Non-smoking writers did

But I told my body, yes,

Someday I’ll pay you back!

Someday I can quit!

And my reputation grew

So I tried to cash it in

And write without smoking

But the non-smokers

Didn’t like the writing

So I’d start again

And my reputation grew again

And eventually I could afford

To actually make music

That would awaken the body

To a deeper grounding,

A deeper spirit, to dance

Out the demon with the help

Of a drummer and bassist

And I didn’t need to smoke

And still could create

And still use my voice

And let the words come

From a less alienated place

Or set other peoples words

To music, and be useful

So I could quit the cigarettes again

And I knew this kind of music

Was a deeper discipline

And that I’d probably never

Get as close to the funk

That inspired me most

But at least I was further along

Than Allen Ginsberg singing

“Don’t Smoke, Don’t Smoke,

It’s a 30 Billion Dollar Capitalist Joke.”

And I knew the groove wasn’t so separate

From what was great about

The writing people loved me for,

And paid me for, and I followed it

And didn’t want to turn my back

On those healthy people who

Didn’t need drums in order not to smoke.

Because I still had all these academic quotes

In the iPod of my memory

And they’d come out in conversation

Or in talking on the classroom,

Where freedom of speech can still

be exercised, fought for,

And I didn’t need cigarettes to talk deeply.

I just needed them to write deeply.

But if I set the words I wrote

Back in the smoking days

To the grooves we came up with

When I worked with the great musicians,

I believed I could bring people together

In a healthier, more perfect union….

Ah, this was the plan, the hope, the goal,

The dream or delusion that lead me on,

But I couldn’t do it alone

And I fell on hard times and lost

The musicians and lost the writers

Who wanted, or even needed, me

to keep writing the smoking verses

or essays, and so I sit here writing this,

while smoking, and it isn’t Ashbery

and it’s even further from James Brown

and I can’t even say it’s me

and it ain’t us, or what we could be

if together we could find our roots in rain

and quit the cigarettes in the

that deep kiss of community…and we

could kick start it as we once did

like those shoelaces, knotted by a need

That likes to act nonchalant…

A need for an institution that

Can truly educate, entertain,

And employ all of us

Who’ve been screwed by you know what…

(yes, cigarettes, like any performance-enhancing steroid, are easily demonized.....but the owners want the home-run battles, they demand the super-human feat. In the arts, there's the illusion that it is not a competition as such, that there is a purity of expression that is not the result of compromise. That leads to a lot of hypocrisy. I never believed that lie. It's destructive, and divisive--and I don't expect you to understand. I could probably do a better job of making it clearer....but art can be, and should be allowed to be, a conversation.....And I know many others who would excel and make healthy contributions to your field, if we could create that conversation---in words and/or music and/or dance.....)