An Irish cigarillo
smoke
I squinted through the preface of
Faust
My dirty feet were bare,
unabashed and in the air
I would scratch my nuts, betrothed
if only they'd consent, descend
I laughed out loud (oy mania!)
as my daughter asked whassup
"What the hell was Goethe's first name?"
She googled it and said "Ludwig"
I blessed her ingenuity--
her genius with text machines
which made the quest of intellect
dull and enigmatic-free.

She asked me if I was okay
and I tossed Goethe across the room
decrying the atrocity
of Hunter Thompson's cross to bear
the pen and ink of Eau Trudeau
and how that must have pained him so--
trapped within iconograph
depicted in the comics, he
displaced his art with bullet seed
polishing his guns.

"oh-there's-nothing-wrong-with-me,
but have y'seen the Amerckan dream?
I'm gonna need some blotter sheets
of acid and an ounce of coke
tequila and a cadillac
and Johnny Depp to study me
while I rehearse another show."

It's gonna be awright yanno

"But never quite the same--I've thrown
too many books across the room."

It's not too late. She smiled at me.

"I just wish...I'd been...something."

You are, she said, You just don't know...

She left for work. I picked up Goethe.
Another cigarillo, lit,
I read my Faust. I'd had my fit.

I'll just pretend I've really quit

while choking on the smoke.