The Last Cigarette

**

Holden Caulfield holds the gun to Abraham Lincoln's head.
The theatre troop takes no notice when he squints his eyes
                        squeezes

+ the flame of the late night cigarette.

The slow smolder that lulls the lust of the last drink,
That alcohol that defies rationale:

The late night AA meetings, anonymous mistakes sprouted from wrinkles and whiskers;
warnings that spin stale fans, suffocating throats of mislead youth.

The alcohol that speaks to the soul, that awakens the urges of Warhol, Dylan Thomas, Jim Morrison, and Cobain.

The whisps of death, escaping shotgun shells and paint brushes;
Tupac.
And silence, death choked words are missing from scriptures.
By hand and by self, the last is left unwritten within the
Pornography and secrets painted upon walls of brain and gore --
all that's left of any legacy
is the ignorance of the tabloid.

Beauty and ignorance.
Beauty and ignorance.