ODE 8316
To Albert Huffstickler
It was a bad daybut I knew something
was good about it.
I pulled a deep waft
of smoke into my mouth
as far down the thoracic cavity
as it would go
before it hit my stomach.
Then slowly I let the smoke
flow, like poetry, first randomly
out of my mouth until I could catch a
drift with my nostrils.
Then I slowly
inhaled two thick
runners of smoke
through my nose,
directly into my brain.
Then she walked in to the room.
It was a coffee shop
with portrait of an old man
writhing in red and black self torment
The title of the painting was
internal portrait number 8316.
Yes, in to the room a woman walked.
I knew at that moment,
that if I were a thread
in the hem of her skirt,
I would not be so all alone.
Suddenly, the problems of
hunger, the increasing
reproductive sterility of living species,
and world war disappeared
like the smoke--yes,
I am an efficient smoker--
like the smoke that seeps into
and disappears in the dark recesses of my brain.
| -- | By Jeff Woodruff, the Netherworld Poet, Austin, Texas |
