The only antidote to love is a cigarette.
What extends the feeling of love after sex can kill it.
Love will be the end of love, and the awareness of this
Is the philosophy which laughs at the kiss.
I will tell you what love is, as I smoke a cigarette.
Love is the satellite which becomes the planet.
Love is the gull flying across the waters of the inlet
Which cools you as you sit in the sun.
Love is the cigarette which sends
Warmth inside you which never ends.
Love is the contrast of your face with hers.
Love is your cat who fills your bed and purrs.
Love knows the heart is near the filling and emptying lungs.
You breathe the nothing of the empty air.
Better for love when sweet smoke eases into the lungs’ lair.
Love is the unhappy story which sings,
Or vanishes, left only with the embarrassment singing brings.
The poet cannot love, for the poet loves all,
And praises even the smoke on the other side of the wall.
Love defies the cold grave
Waiting for suicidal Cleopatra, who wasn’t brave.
Love vows, but love cannot save
The warrior Ulysses from the elaborate grave.
Men and women make each other sad.
In love, their differences drive each other mad
And so love becomes a storm that grows alone
Until you talk to yourself, and your perfections groan
And all the best of you cries, and you find yourself crying alone.
So take another drag of your cigarette,
And you’ll forsake love yet.
Heart-broken agony cries from a million tongues.
Butts litter graves. The heart is next to the lungs.
