Ode to the Cigar

Smoldering leaf,
in my hand.
I taste the flavors
Of a burning soil,
A smoky earth.
The draws between
Of the finer air,
Of the refreshing sweet,
The sweet that rushes to
My ever cognitive head.
You are my ancestors
Breathing, holding,
Savoring the wind they
No longer can.
The forgotten drums
The dragon's rings and
Bellow.
You leave
With a wisp and whisper
A grey reflection,
In my hand.
Atmosphere lift
And contain me.
Please, stop my tears
And my dying tongue
Chokes and holds
Remembrances of you
And my past
Pains and pleasures.
You are my respite,
My love, my inspire
And Inspiration.
Orange, go. Love.
Speak to me, rattle and batter.
Wooden seats, and gifts
Flow and stop in
My river of dirt and leaves.

Go, my smoky message,
My apparition and friend.
Tingle, once more, me,
And raise my feet
To new highs
And newer contemplation
And consternation.
Hear, here in my sighs,
My puffs: I love - you.
All I can get
And you leave, again.
I chase, stumble,
Tumble, tumble, tumbling
To my leather
In desperate,
In futile,
Hope.

My heart stops, stutters,
Flutters. And again.
My loving hearth, that origin
Smolders; I smother
So the last remaining bitter is
Also sugary in my mind.
I love you, ghosts.
Let me sweat you out
So you can drench me
Later
In rapture, in cool
Moisture.

---------------------------------------------------------------

I ignite cigars
not for the nicotine,
but for the flame.

I relish the remnant smoke
on my fingers
to remind me of the chaotic pleasure.

The brightest candles burn fastest
And die in fire.

----------------------------------------------------------------

My cigar is lovely in taste -
It's whispy saccharine tails coat my jaw;
Later, it is similarly laced in fatigue.
All good things have their price,
And, in blood smeared coinage,
I pay the cloaked merchant,
An owner of vices and virtues, my dues.
He gives and receives all manners of things;
My grief for you must cost me a life or two,
Along with the shavings of a few trimmed years.

I also pay that grizzly Mogul my grimaces and gold,
And for all my meat abstained I gain some soul
But sell some nuanced culinary appreciations.
With every puff of fumes, my friendly roll of spice,
You burn along my bits of life and sliver piece of mind.

But life without your taste and lull
And my cigar's sweet consolation,
It all would be so long and full
Of trite sights and tribulations sole.