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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!seismo!hao!hplabs!sytek!syteka!mr.mincemeat
From: mr.mincemeat@syteka.UUCP (mr.mincemeat)
Newsgroups: net.poems
Subject: why I quit smoking
Message-ID: <372@syteka.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 29-Sep-83 17:57:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: syteka.372
Posted: Thu Sep 29 17:57:14 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 2-Oct-83 13:30:56 EDT
Lines: 47






		It's seven o'clock and I am dying
		In the endings of the world I find my own.
		I choke for breath and my marrow screams
		Red cells find warped birth in agony-
		My bones are going hollow and they cry
		It hurts to move, it hurts to die
		And I am singing-
		I am singing bird songs, pain songs,
		I moan my chant I chirp decay
		Transmogrification finds tiny claws-
		My ravaged hemoglobin calls out for a smoke.

		I want a cigarette that burns forever
		I want king-size low-tar eternity
		I will tell my nicotine rosary
		I will touch my beads and I won't get sick
		I will clench the filter in my beak;
		On scaly wings will rise above the ashes
		Forever my teeth and the paper will be white.

		Forever I will grasp fibers, breathing filtered wind,
		I will blow smoke-rings with no lips;
		In harsh avian tones I will speak the Words
		And mark my homilies on my teeth.
		The world will be new as I squat among the fern-trees-
		Acancerous archaic, in the dawn
		I will leave my droppings in a string;
		They will find themselves in amber
		And I will breathe deep and feathered grin
		Blink my eyes and flex my claws
		On my digits I will count,
		Two by two, click by click,
		Binary arithemetics mark my path to God.





			 Tom Teriffic,

	 {ucbvax,hao}!{menlo70,hplabs}!sytek!toms
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