It was in ’76 I first needed that fix, on a daily basis,
But it wasn’t until ’89 that I thought it time
To flick that cig, inhale a puff one last time;
Hold, yellow-fingered, and drag on it, deep,
Give its browned butt one last parting kiss, and
With browner lips, exhale remnant blue smoke
From blackened lungs and cough
Out the words: “I’ve had enough.”

I’ve had enough and can reload no more my lips
With this filter-tipped cartridge blended for addiction,
This nicotine delivery device of chemicals and tar
That makes slaves alike, of peasant, of tsar.
This must be lit no more to brighten my day—
That monsoon sky, even most overcast,
Must suffice to serve as my default dopamine,
No more ersatz light. It’s back to sugar; no saccharine.

No more must I flick-light this dynamite stick
That with its long, invisible, emphysemic fuse
Meanders its malignant way
To the Marlboro Man’s lassoed noose
Nor to Joe Camel’s cartoon ruse-
Flavored ads—Light, Mild, Bold,
Ensnaring man, woman, even the sixteen-year old.

All this, planned invisibly in smoke-free boardrooms
In sky scrapers of stainless steel and glass;
So far-removed
From their foundational morass
These Mammon’s mansions—
De facto gas chambers killing us en masse.
And around unblemished rectangular tables
Of rich mahogany (the color of drag-darkened lungs)
Sit Armani-suited, gents, who in all probability
To ivy-league colleges went
(In more innocent days?)
To do good with their vaunted PhDs, even mere MAs.
Somewhere along the way,
They lost what it took
Just to remain good.

Who, with their Watermans wielded in unstained fingers (clean, no grime)
By their products from billions, billions more, glean,
Pore now over fables freshly arrived on said tables
From those whiz-kids of Madison Ave., their secrette cohorts in crime:
“I want this ad! Not that,” tantrums the chairman
And all his minions—millions, no, billions at stake—
Obsequiously oblige.
And sign off in black ink, our tarred death-warrants.

Can you smell this all? No. How can you know?
Not with your deadened olfactory sense.
Nor can you breathe this, Vader-like, without O2 tank in tow,
Nor vocalize this, chord-less throated,
Like some humanoid R2d2, battery operated.

Still, can you implore?
“No more.
I’m done:
While you gentle sir, gentle woman,
Of Wall Street and Madison Avenue,
Of R. J. Reynolds, Phillip Morris and of Winston
And while you, too, our servants public,
Feed on…
Our coughers in Washington,
Go about your business as before.

We have lost,
Butt, you have won”?

Zend Lakdavala. 18 April 2010.