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THE SMOKING POET |
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Love
is an exploding cigar we willingly smoke. ─Lynda Barry, American
writer and cartoonist
U.S. Forces In
Iraq Enjoy a Taste of Home By Capt. Murray Shugars, 2nd
Battalion, 198th Combined Arms
One shopper was less interested in cigars than in other tobacco products and accessories. “I bought a cigarette holder with a two-headed Byzantine eagle on the lid,”
Capt. Correy K. Elder said. Elder is the officer in charge of the Department of Public Works and a Jackson, Mississippi, native.
“I think it’s pretty good to give a variety of products to the soldiers, give the guys more options.” Staff Sgt. Anthony M. Douglas said the store offers soldiers a unique way to relax.
Douglas is the non-commissioned officer in charge of the mayor cell helpdesk and a native of Cockrum, Mississippi. “I’m glad the store opened because sharing quality cigars is a great
way for soldiers to kick back and relax at the end of the day,” Douglas said. “I’ve been smoking cigars
for nine years, but I have never had a Cuban cigar to put in my humidor. I’m looking forward to smoking a real Cuban
cigar.” Lt. Col. William B. Smith, Jr., the Q-West mayor and a Hattiesburg, Mississippi,
native, says that encouraging Iraqi commerce is an important part of the strategic effort in Iraq. “Supporting local business is important, and it becomes more important as our mission transitions,” Smith said. “When multi-national forces return COL Q-West to the Iraqi military, we will leave them a better base than when we arrived, one with a military and economic infrastructure able to help support a sovereign, self-reliant Iraq. One way to define our level of success in Iraq is by how well we have nurtured Iraq’s developing economic capacity, for this will significantly improve the country’s long-term stability.”
An
associate professor of English at Alcorn State University in Mississippi, Murray’s poetry has appeared in Smartish Pace poetry journal, in the chapbook, Songs My Mother Never Taught
Me (Dos Madres 2009), and in The Smoking Poet. An infantry officer in the Mississippi Army National Guard, currently deployed to |
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Only Then By Travis Mossotti The Hemingway Short
Story is a stubby, torpedo
shaped cigar that responds well to
fire. It lasts in the way we last:
smoke of our body becoming
air, becoming breeze, becoming the cold front that
slams its thick skull against a tree,
against a forest, against the town, where
as a boy, I slept with a brown
teddy bear —threadbare buttons
in its grooved sockets—that
bear had seen it all come
and go and knew the familiar
sting of quarrelsome parents
lighting the hallway, had often
buried itself in the backyard
under the silver maple: a
makeshift graveyard where the
sun fell to its knees, the
winsome sun pressing a shadow
against another grave. I left
flowers. My father would light
those stubby brown cigars
and lean over the rail of the
back deck like a Buddhist shaving
his head in the dark; he would
smoke and stare past the forest
and imagine the coming winter and
the next and before long his
parturient gaze fell back upon
the house, and I could smell the
rush of spent tobacco as
he brushed past. I can smell it
now. We don’t talk about
such things in polite conversation
although I wish we could. Then
I could show you the night a
tree fell on our house, the truculent wind escaping the forest’s
lungs, the lightning bluing
our crushed wooden deck, my mother’s
ruffled blackwatch nightgown,
felled tree snug against the roof,
a hundred years of growing towards this scene. Travis Mossotti is enrolled
in the MFA program at SIUC and has poetry in current or forthcoming issues of Another
Chicago Magazine, Antioch Review, Cream
City Review, Dark Horse, Playing Dead Plays Muriel Cigar By Shelby Stephenson, author
of Family Matters: Homage to July, The Slave Girl, Winner of the 2008 Bellday Poetry Prize 1 It was post-Lewinsky. Hard was his winkle. Onetwothreefour legs―Sphinx― Yet he could not say
why don’t you pick one up and smoke it sometime! And White Owl was out
and King Edward. Rum River Crook and
El Rees So, too. Muriel did not make
him feel like turf, Though she came to him
as a woman dressed in a blouse cut low. Let’s hear it
for Muriel, PD shouted, wallowing in his cigar-fame Fumes flaming curlicues
round his snout, Toes sporting rings
from his Darling Dame! 2 He was a long way from
He could not be a hero
and sail the seas like the wanderers of old. He’d rather be
a scavenger than an adventuring marsupial― Maybe he could hide
in a peacock’s feathers for some hubris Or crawl out on a limb
of aspects growling far from the Tomb of Regret. He took to teaching
young ’uns survival tactics and was nominated for an award. It was a sight―so
much hype in wallops of chalk-dust― Evaluations from student
PDs about his ugly face or his rumpled skin. He needed a bunker to
keep him from such fare. He remembered how lucky
he was―counting the days And praising the Society
of Little Feet And the Wildlife Sanctuaries
touting him―North
5 Vegas Anomaly Cigar Review by David Blaine I’ve seen 5 Vegas
for sale online and their sharp packaging grabbed my eye from the get go, but when I had a chance to try 20 pieces of the
Petit Corona (4.5x.44) for less than 40 bucks, I jumped. Mine came in two cello wrapped 10 packs. I’ve also seen them
in boxes of 20 selling in the $60 range. The truth is that the
foil band and cedar sleeve are just marketing, but these aren’t bad cigars by any means. In these post S-Chip days,
a handmade cigar for two bucks is, well, an anomaly. The Costa Rican maduro
wrapper is about as black as an Onyx, and although the unlit cigar doesn’t have a very spicy aroma, lighting it will
change that. There’s a copious amount of smoke with chocolately overtones and a bit of spice beneath. Construction is
above average for this price range, holding a long, white ash and burning evenly. It also stayed lit for me while I went inside
to top off my beverage―always a good thing. These smoke well with
a morning coffee and equally well with an afternoon tumbler of bourbon. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Blaine
lives, writes, and works with his family in rural Michigan. His latest poetry collection, Antisocial, was published
this year by Outsider Writers Press. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
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review of your favorite cigar or tobacconist, perhaps an essay on your love of the leaf? See our submission guidelines.
Feedback, submissions, ideas? E-mail thesmokingpoet@gmail.com |
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