A Cold Night's Smoke

Born unto the hot red fiery embers of a life struck by match
amidst the crisp black – no blue, real breathing, true truth

The thick white-wisped vapor crawls, climbs forth, engulfed
by and by to intolerable truth, like a breath last let – silent, expecting, surrendered.

Like the pack decides the smoke, all life can be sequential.
It’s too tight, too loose, just right – and against the cold blue ageless Truth we fight.

Our blackened lungs strain to keep the burning hope alive while others
reap the benefits of time, patience, the 'habit of the mind.'

And stoking last coals conjures dull release, regret, remorse;
And seized, sense the rapid transition from sweet soul-winning bliss to gall, no less.
Panic – stoke, hope, logic, gall. Surrender.


I just finished editing this poem of mine a few minutes ago. I began writing it after a late night pipe-smoke out on the Terazzo last week. Sorry if it's a little hard to understand - hey, at least I get it. Also, 'habit of mind' comes from one John Henry Newman who wrote Idea of a University - I read it in Russell Kirk's book Redeeming the Time, so I don't really know much about Newman... yet.