Jaundice

You've got amber about you

those motley bristles,

tawny, mouse, and rust

coating your cheekbones,

homing smoke

like gaseous battery acid, acrid

as bacteria that snack on you

and leave behind their saffron trash,

that spread their noxious opinion

to whatever will listen,

teeth, tongue, finger stained,

you,

covered in the buttery petal-flies of spring

and renewal

and inside you are tar

and decay.

At the end of your life

you will have smoked

a swimming pool full

today you weigh in

at 3 charred barbecues

and a toilet bowl.

Last night I found you post-resolution

cigarette in hand

scavenged random

from the ash tray

flame painting your shame.

I tell you

to revel in deprivation

to relish the hunger like an anorexic

to think how sexy

it would be

to thwart cancer's sultry advances

in favor of a lively chastity

but in the end,

you're nicotine's humbled slave

to the grave.

Today I dozed my way home

and took the blackest of cat naps,

made a suicide pact with a daymare,

it's silky tail glinting blue

in the moonlight under my eyelids

settling over the sun like a snuff

I awoke mired to my bedsheets

Sam's salsa band practice

pounding through the neighbors walls

and my earplugs

How many times do we practice dying

in dreams?

The light returns and we fade awake.

Reviews

[JC]

You have a very dreamy stream of consciousness, your thoughts flowing out with descriptive poetic metaphor and insights heavily laden with death and decay, but in a beautiful tragic way. I like your style.

[M. Shepherd]

Much thanks JC. :)

[h d e rushin]

there is power, in fact great power in the unscriptural/ and when it comes to smokers they so hate to be
preached to. In fact, meth addicts or those addicted to sex can, at least, take an intervention. But there is something about the power of smoking and the misguided, historical guarantees it promised to all who choose to light up. You would be popular like Bogart, have those smoky eyes like Betty Bacall, be
the cool, anti-purdah, strict-less revolutionary like Frank O'hara. The rebel that abounds in the images of all "good" American history, smoked. But I digress:

anything that happens in a poem has been poetically purged. That is, it has been made free of something
unwanted, be it heartache or as barteygirl said, the bad breath of a friend. The describe being,
to take a look at the air, the servitude, the tarred life; the dreams you cannot even sleep through.
Your amazing here Marcie. In fact, you have become amazing everywhere.

dana

[M. Shepherd]

I can't deny the romanticism. Frankly if it didn't make me nauseous I mightve picked up the sexy habit myself. But I get to pretend to decide its too unhealthy to self-destruct. Others, not so fortunate.
"Dreams you cannot even sleep through" I love that. You have given me many thoughtfuls, as Carl Sandberg might say. Thank you for stopping by, Dana. :)

[barleygirl]

I love the first two stanzas. I love your use of many imaginative ways to convey the color yellow, yet not done in a showy way like a literary trick, each reference is an intrinsic part of the thought being expressed at each moment. The gloomy, dreary depiction of life addicted to nicotine is very pervasive & convincing. The weakness revealed in the 2nd stanza is powerful in how it delivers feelings of shame & recrimination. I'm thinking the last stanza doesn't even fit into this message. It's excellently stated, but it's just a different poem altogether. One time I told a smoker that his breath smelled like roadkill. He was so pissed at me, I never saw him again until years later, when he admitted my comment helped him quit. Your bleakly-painted poem is powerful in the same constructive way.

[M. Shepherd]

You're totally right, the last stanza is an entirely different poem.. I may move it somewhere else. Thank you for the insightful thoughts!

[. serah .]

-- sorry i had to delete the previous review... -- too much info on the internet could prove to be risky... -- this is a brilliant piece of writing... as you know already... :)

[M. Shepherd]

Totally fair - I should have moved my inquiries to a private forum. :)

[. serah .]

-- thanks... someone here read the conversation and asked me to delete it... -- all's well again... lol... :)

[James]

The way you describe the smoker is incredible. I should know, I used to be one. And I think my family felt exactly the way the speaker does in the beginning of this piece. The rest is pretty incredible too. How many times have I woke just before the end? too many and mired to my sheets as well. Just really incredible powers of description here.

[M. Shepherd]

Thank you james, appreciate the kind words. :)

[W.k.kortas]

It would be unkind, and inaccurate, to say that what is best about this poem is what it isn't--that said, what it isn't should be noted. It would easy for this piece to be a hectoring broadsword, loudly beating the reader about the head and shoulders with a simple one-dimensional message. This is a different beast--there is nuance in the messaging, and the use of color as it relates to jaundice, which in itself is studied literally and figuratively, skillfully yet playfully laid out before us in the opening stanza, is virtuoso stuff.

[M. Shepherd]

It's funny - I showed this piece to the subject (and other pieces written about him) with the message "don't worry about it too much, it's just poetry" and he takes it that way, which always surprises me. Maybe more thrilled to be written about than anything. But it is, it's just words, it means everything and much more and nothing all at the same time. It's a harsher, hyperbolic reality inside this piece (he really hasn't yellowed physically at all, in fact). In reality, everything's pretty much ok. I'm not sure what I'm trying to say.. I guess I'm glad it doesn't seem harpy, because I love dirt and soot and everything messy because its much more fascinating than godliness.

[M. Shepherd]

Thank you for stopping by wk - I adore your reviews. :)

[jacob erin-cilberto]

this has a powerful message...we know sometimes we are killing ourselves but ignore it all...and it hurts others around us worse than it hurts us...they see the demise and accept it...pray for recovery...yet we just revel in destroying ourselves.

so descriptive here, some really unique imagery you use.

[M. Shepherd]

Thank you Jacob, for the kind words :)