a woman is an occasional pleasure but a cigar is always a smoke.

Title thanks to Groucho Marx, without whom I would be nowhere today.  This:

And now here's a poem I wrote a couple of years ago, which was the initial purpose of this post.


I stood before a portrait of a stream
Whose sinuous waist was lined with daffodils
Each yellow head bent down as in a dream
My heart, a cup, began to slosh and spill
Some color down into my marrow deep.
But I inhaled the scent of musty oil,
And through my patchwork lungs began to seep.
My eyes were sharpened from a soft recoil
And I, about to turn, spared one last glance
My shoes were firm cemented to the floor
As I beheld those daffodils now rustling in a dance
I cried with want to step inside that calm, beloved scene,


Stepped I forward, but now was grass where cold, hard tile had been.

My cry had risen from these depths across a windy sea
And filled the ears, reduced to tears some wizened wizard there
He climbed his tower and brought up to his eye
A pair of magic spectacles a rare
And multicolored specimen of lore.
His sight was stretched over rock and gull and sea
And caught my face inside a prism of light
And God did melt into a cup some steaming empathy
And dumped it down into his chest, down to his soul contrite
This eccentric man took both his hands
And rubbed them quick together, mumbled this:


"Spleen of newt, Apollo Contraband,
Ease a weary soul now, such as his."


He then released a slow and shaky breath
Into the space between his thumbs through which
A Golden Scaled Lizard scrambled west
And tore his way into this oily stitch.
The daffodils, once frozen cold in stance
Were Lizard-Born, and round my feet now danced.
I, in half a mood of fright, the other half in glee
Did swivel on my heel and turn to see what I could see
A painting hung now parallel to my embrightened eye
Around the frame, adorned with stars, a dark black smoking sky
Upon the canvas, not a smudge was found
But purest white, which dribbled to the ground
At my finger's touch, as from a wound
The white began to gather at my feet
And I began to make a slow retreat
I turned around, my scene began to melt
My heart began to drain, a strain I felt
As all the yellow hoods dripped in the stream
The cold white muck had raised, I was waist deep
The fiery sky behind did raised a smolder
The cold white muck had risen to my shoulder
And as I cried to God to save my soul
I woke in sweat, my heart an empty bowl.




Thought I'd share it with you, the philistine masses.  Feel free to print it out and stick it to the fridge with a novelty magnet in the shape of a buffalo head from some Yellowstone gift shop.