The Classics (?) Hey Buddy! Got A Cigarette?

So I got home this evening and got in the mood to possibly write something. Went into my files of stuff and got to reading some older stuff. Some might have been published on an older blog in the past. I don't remember anymore what was or wasn't.

Some that I thought of revisiting for publication were pretty... frightening? Good shit though (to my twisted ass anyway). Anyway, I found this one and thought I'd occasionally do a revisited classic. This is a strange piece to have been authored by "DarkGarden;" where usually works such as this were penned by "Mr. Nick."

So, for your poetic enjoyment, I present:


Hey Buddy! Got a Cigarette?

Met the lonely man,
Scarred from chest to his cock.
So many nameless operations.
Body a battlefield.

They cut him over and over,
Each time take more and more.
Take some gut,
Take some disease,
And each time lose a little more
Of what that person was.
Little more of that supporting
Soul slips away.

Like a gas under pressure.
Hissing leak.
Contents escape into space.
He was proud once.
He was mighty once.
Children sang and played about him.
Weathered and quickly aging.
A little more of
That soul slips away.

Paranoid and bent.
Wanting someone to understand.
Wanting someone to listen.
His every step, now, is labored;
Where once it bounced lightly.

Begging for cigarettes
Smoked in stained and colorless shorts.
Tell him not to smoke inside.
A little more of
That soul slips away.

Trying to remain tough
Trying to save face.
Picked on.
Trodden on.
Sipping on an old coffee
From a Styrofoam cup.
And every moment
Trying to forget the man he was.
Another veteran from some forgotten war,
A proud father of four.
But no one cares now, brother.
Things move fast now,
And we have no time for past.
A little more of
That soul slips away.

I saw them carry his body away.
Then I looked across the street where
Someone carried some trash to the curb.
I gazed at both scenes as one.
They looked the same.

They laid him out cheaply,
Just down the street.
I walked inside.
I don’t know why.
Several dusty people roamed about.
I searched around a bit for an answer.
There was none.
There was silence.
I walked back home,
A little more bent and a little slower.
A little more of
My soul slipping away.



-Dark Garden