Hi Tumblr. I’ve been gone for a while. Sorry. But I’m back now, summer is here, and I’ve a new obsession with rock climbing, so here we go.
I find it hard to describe things. The problem, of course, is that by the time you've described something, at least one of you has changed.
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HOW TO BEAT CHILDREN
If you strike a child, take care that you strike it in anger, even at the risk of maiming it for life. A blow in cold blood neither can nor should be forgiven.
If you beat children for pleasure, avow your object frankly, and play the game according to the rules, as a foxhunter does; and you will do comparatively little harm. No foxhunter is such a cad as to pretend that he hunts the fox to teach it not to steal chickens, or that he suffers more acutely than the fox at the death. Remember that even in childbeating there is the sportsman’s way and the cad’s way.
George Bernard Shaw -
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Cigarette,
desperate first pulls through unlit length,
in front of tiny spark of
Zippo, match, stove burner.
Final release of success
at seeing tiny end flare up,
burning on its own now.Cigarette,
one of untold billions,
each in its own scene,
singular aesthetic.
With flavor unique,
image drawn from rummaged past.
Hanging loosely, no hands,
bright summer sun shines on white T-shirt,
an aviator’s sunglasses.
Tiny point of light,
miniscule orange sun in cold dark void,
held carefully by frozen fingers,
warm guard against the night.
Loose grip, relaxed,
jazz plays through smoke,
pushing clouds against suit jackets, ties, and martini glasses.Cigarette,
most yet to come,
long drags still wait in the wings,
wrapped in white paper,
still yet to be drawn in,
with the rush of fire and nature combined,
to be exhaled as beautiful twisting gray entrails,
hanging on the ceiling like jungle vines,
endlessly braiding and unraveling,
only to be blown away.Cigarette,
soon to be no more
than spent filter,
last vestiges of brown leaves still attached,
wasted on gray concrete, green grass,
or drowned in cold coffee.Cigarette,
tiny fire blown out in the face of the strong wind,
steamed out in freezing rain,
broken under pressure
of strong fingers, boot heels,
tires.Cigarette,
only for a time. -
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Oh, for the fifties.
When the very air smelt of cigarette smoke, the cold damp blanket stench of normative culture, and the wet slap of misogyny.
The fifties,
when, if the movies are to be believed, married couples slept in their beds fully clothed,
separately together.
Oh, for that golden age of America!
