Smoked "Africaines" in Luxembourg, "Gitanes" in France, Camels in New
York, Players in the UK until Allen Fisher introduced me to the
"yellow devils", and old Brit blend I can't remember the actual name
of, but they tasted something like Sweet Aftons, later in the US, and
even today, indulge in the odd American Spirit.
Was fascinated by the sailor on the Players pack and wrote an early
poem featuring him, way back in the 70ies. Here it is, with some loss
of layout, for your post-smoking pleasure – Pierre
MATROSEN LIED
(Infamous Baines,
that early supergrass, testified
that Christopher Marlowe held "That all they that loue
not Tobacco & Boies were Fooles...")
How
the rising sun
thru these curtains
goes at me
again & again
mid-mornings
falls across my desk
how it sprawls
over the notebook how
it gains heat from
my coffee growing cold.
How
leaning back I light a cigarette
admiring the four-colored
sailor on the blue-white pack.
HERO it says on his cap
a bearded hero's head
between sail & steam
surrounded not by sea
but by a life buoy.
Look alive boy,
your cheeks are pink
your lips are red
your beard the color
of tobacco
& you look serious
sternly boyish
in your light blue sailor shirt
Was it he
helped Thomas Harriot
carry his cases ashore?
His 19C look does not deceive
he's immeasurably older
it is he who as a old man
taught young Ralegh how to use
the astrolabe, & he
knows the spot
where Drake lies buried.
He lashed Ulysses to the mast
& did the same for Turner
shaking his head, wondering
at the foolishness of men:
it's not the kind of thing
he'd do, he knows better
has lived longer & is
satisfied with his quart of rum
a day.
Below deck
while the storm rages
& the sirens sing
he sips his drink
reflecting on how
doing the necessary
should be enough
for any man
immensely man
he sits among his mates
satisfied that he is immortal
because of the casual accuracy
with which he fulfills
the necessary confronting him.
For him no need for siren song
though it will be a tall tale to tell
in the taverns between now & then.
If I were a man
who still fell in love with sailors
I would surely fall in love with him.
I'd love him in all the narrow beds
from Brest to Valparaiso
we would armwrestle in Hamburg's Kneipen
down copas of sangre de toro
in the bodegas in Barcelona
one hand caressing his sleeping head
resting on my knees one hand
drawing love-tattoos in the wine-spill
on the wooden tables older
than age. O how I'd worship
his arched cock
his perfect balls!
Unsung hero
let me sing you
suck you
off this packet of cigarettes
the smoke I exhale
curls in the air
folds in sunlight
tornado, typhoon
or simple tempest
I peer deeply into
your left glass eye
(you left the good one
in a brothel in Shanghai
as payment for the favors
of a mongolian princess)
I see a storm
& a shipwreck
off the Scillies
I watch you swim ashore
clutching the black Aztec mirror
between your teeth
it's all you're left with
you owe it your life
or that's what you think
& two weeks later
you barter it in a tavern
near Deptford for the charms
of a boy once laid
with Marlowe.
The sun
is higher now
we dream in time
the time it took
to write this down
or the time it takes
the sun to dry
this ink.
The coffee's
quite cold now
sweet & gold now
as cold as last night's dream
when I threw down the bedside lamp.
I forgot the dream
& now wonder
did I dream of the sun
falling or of
a ship going down
of a face heated & reddened
by the sun at sea?
How come this morning -
what was it this morning -
made me look at the daily
packet of Players
was it what the dream
wanted or was it
what made me
dream?
On Nov 13, 2007, at 3:27 AM, Patrick McManus wrote:
> I had a cigarette once it was foul and my last (I was 11 at the
> time)I do
> make up with plonk on the indulgence side!!!!
> Cheers P
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Roger Day
> Sent: 13 November 2007 06:36
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Cigarettes
>
> My father used to smoke Capstan Full Strength smelt bloody horrible,
> picture of a Victorian sailor on the front. He still smokes when he
> thinks mother isn't looking.
>
> His legs now have furred arteries.
>
> Roger
>
> On Nov 13, 2007 12:17 AM, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> I recall my father's cigarette packets from the 1940s -
>> de Reschke (sp?), named after an opera singer...
>>
>> Max
>>
>>
>>
>> On 13/11/07 11:03 AM, "Kenneth Wolman" <[log in to unmask]>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> M. Borges Accardi wrote:
>>>> Worst/best was a brand called Spartus, strong tobacco, blue box, no
> filter.?
>>>> Sold in Prague.? There were only two brands when I smoked--I
>>>> forget the
>>>> other. Miserable, wonderful habit.? I quit when I could not smoke
>>>> on
> the
>>>> plane. I saw the end was near. . .and could not face those long
>>>> flights
>>>> "jonesing" a cigarette.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Before 6th Avenue in Manhattan upscaled into Avenue of the Americas,
>>> there were lots of tobacco shops that also hid the condoms behind
>>> the
>>> counter, hawked straight and gay porn both, and those
>>> cigarettes...oy...an Austrian brand called Amneris after the mezzo
>>> character in Verdi's *Aida*: just awful. I picked up some Russian
>>> brand
>>> for a play I was in; like the ones Frederick described, they came
>>> with a
>>> long cardboard tube and tobacco that could knock the wind out of
>>> you.
>>>
>>> Smoking was my really great guilty pleasure because I didn't feel
>>> guilty
>>> about it back when everyone smoked. Even as late as the late '90s
>>> I'd
>>> stand outside Morgan Stanley with other smokers. One of them, a
>>> statuesque brunette at whom I was making occhi di pesce, said "I
>>> really
>>> should NOT be doing this." "None of us should," I said. "So what's
>>> your excuse?" "I'm an opera singer," she replied, "dramatic
>>> soprano. I
>>> sing at the Met." I checked a program. She really did. And
>>> smoked.
>>> Then again...so did Caruso, Vickers, several others not as well
>>> known.
>>>
>>> Filthy smelly habit. Miss it!
>>>
>>> Ken
>>>
>>> ------------------
>>> Kenneth Wolman rainermaria.typepad.com
>>>
>>> "I agree with the Chekhov character who, when in a crisis, he is
>>> reminded that 'this, too, shall pass,' responds 'Nothing
>>> passes.'"--Philip Roth
>>
>> --
>>
>
>
>
> --
> My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/
> "In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons."
> Roman Proverb
>
>
> --
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> 07/11/2007
> 09:21
___________________________________________________________
The poet: always in partibus infidelium -- Paul Celan
___________________________________________________________
Pierre Joris
244 Elm Street
Albany NY 12202
h: 518 426 0433
c: 518 225 7123
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Euro cell: (011 33) 6 75 43 57 10
email: [log in to unmask]
http://pierrejoris.com
Nomadics blog: http://pjoris.blogspot.com
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