Seduce me
In salt and pepper slag
Lipsticked and kissed
You are my swag
So sleek in cylinder fashion
Each one of you
My moment of passion
Ending just before
Your tones of terra cotta
Filter me
Just ever so slightly as I
In…..hale……slow…….ly
Incandescent in fire engine red
Kindled by each blazing breath
Awwww
Silver flakes fall like snow
And I know
I loved you
Once
As a former smoker, I cannot tolerate the sight or smell of cigarettes.
Can you find beauty in the ugliness?
That is our challenge today at dVerse. You are welcome to join in at 3 p.m. EST
Image credit: pixabay.com
mishunderstood 
Oh.. as a never smoker I can tolerate the fags even less… Love how you describe that sense of smoking which I never felt, but can understand…
For some strange reason, it felt good at the time. Now I can’t stand to be anywhere close to a burning cigarette.
You just did what I never could 🙂
Ah, I like it. I can feel the slight pang of regret. Never thought I’d see any beauty in that picture.
Me neither! I guess that’s why I chose it. 😉
Great work with your semantic field there.
I so get this! I gave up smoking 24 years ago and never looked back. I can’t stand the smell of smoke on other people or my hair or clothes. But you’ve captured something in this poem, Mish, that appeals to this former smoker. I love the llnes: ‘So sleek in cylinder fashion’ and ‘Incandescent in fire engine red / Kindled by each blazing breath’.
Thank you, Kim. I can’t stand the smell either. Horrible.
Never smoked but my parents did. I lived in a haze that hung down three feet from the ceiling.
It’s terrible when we don’t have a choice to not inhale!
Those butts are ugly, but their colors can be quite attractive.
I suppose, Frank but I’m glad they don’t appeal to me anymore.
a love poem to a cigarette butt,…”salt and pepper slag”, great stuuf
Thank you, Jim. 🙂
I also cannot stand anything relating to cigarettes, but I’m amazed at the pretty images you painted. I particularly love:
“Incandescent in fire engine red
Kindled by each blazing breath”
and
“Silver flakes fall like snow
And I know
I loved you
Once.”
Thanks Jade. 🙂
I hate them too!
Well you did it! Some very positive description here….kissed ones and that passion before the terra cotta. The spacing for the inhaling is very effective.
I’m reminded of the old time movies where the stars savored their cigarettes and it was a mark of sophistication.
Now? I’m with you!
Yes! It’s funny how some people today still think it looks good. Yuck.
I hate it actually but what one do if one’s hubby is a stubbon smoker. Love that change from seduction to tones of terra cotta, until the silver flakes falling like snow.
Thank you, Grace. 🙂
WOW. This is amazing.
Aww…you are too kind. Thanks for that.
i dont smoke and dont like smoking but its a love hate relationship, cigarettes remind me of my dad, he chain smoked! So I like seeing someone smoke a cigarette but really don’t like the smoke or the smell!
My father smoked Old Port Tips (cigars)….in the car, with us in it. I would rather think of another connection. Hope you can too. 🙂
true Mish, there are other “healthier” things that remind me of him, but this is the most vivid and saddest one. those tough men of the old days thought they were invincible
I was a smoker, and I have the daily inhalants to prove it! Like you, I now abhor the sight or smell of cigarettes, and rue the day I was enticed to try one. In my day, you were considered a bit square if you didn’t smoke … or so I thought! You’ve encapsulated it well.
Thanks for your comments, Beverly. We live, we learn!
I was a chain smoker. It was hell while I was cooking! I think we smokers who have quit dislike the smell even more intensely than those who never did. You did an excellent job on this poem Mish. I remember the feeling of sensuality that ensued when one smoked. I remember running out on breaks to super suck down a ciggie. I am so glad the US enacted the no smoking anywhere rule. One can go to bar and sit down and not worry about coming out inundated with the smell.
Thank you, Toni! I didn’t know if I could pull it off. So repulsed by the image.
Oh well done …I’m a former smoker too, was repelled by the image…funny how the pleasure lingers in the memory.
haha..well I had to dig deep for that !
Thanks, V.J.
Glad you had to dig deep, Mish – I was concerned you were getting lured in again, lol.
The visual take you back to a day and time when the memory felt really good This is a great poem Mish. Your visuals are wonderful.
Thank you. I appreciate your comment, Dwight. 🙂
Such a great prompt and you sure took it on full drag with this poem. You were able to somehow show beauty in all this nastiness and I especially liked the detail of the terra cotta tones. We also both used flakes of snow in our poems:) Well shoot. I’ve never tried a cigarette but now I think I just might! Those tobacco lobbyists need you, Mish.
Thanks, Amaya. You are not missing anything. They are nasty little beasts.
Loving Oneself First With No Exceptions.. Loving Others Next With No Exceptions
And yes.. Understanding That Light comes From Dark.. And Yes.. Great Good comes
From Horrid Ugly Evil as Those Who Continue to Agape Love Fight Ugly Evil With Love
Going Higher Instead of Lower
In Victory Over Vengeance
Is A Path
To Beauty
With No Defeat
For Beauty is Love
With Wings Grounded
In a Balance of Left and Right..
Light and Dark.. Shadow and Love.. For all that is as is..
Anyway.. A Wonderful Prompt And Muse you Bring today
Mish As always Ugly
Disgust of
Different
is An Adversary
Of Beauty as all that will
Not Fail Or Fall When Agape Love Driving..:)
Thanks for your unique expression, as always. 🙂
SMiLes.. Mish.. Thanks so much
For Your
Kind Welcome..:)
All is together
Here, we all have
Worth and light up
In some way.
Ok to love
What suffocates
Especially when it
Gives so much
Without malice
It just is, just a pretty
Little plant minding
Its own business.
Which is what
We all are
And all so dangerous
In our weigh, but
Can be, loved no
Exception even
If is toxic and
We have to
Leaf.
No ReaL LiFENoW
WithouT LoVinG
FLoWeR’S AnD
THoRN’S RosE..:)
Zactly!
SMiLes.. Thanks
Lona and Good
To see you on
The dVerse Trail
Again..:)
Epic title. Effective breaks in the content. Brilliant!
Thank you so much! 🙂
You’re welcome, Mish!
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Having been a former smoker, I find it difficult to tolerate and even more difficult to see the beauty or temptation in a cigarette or dirty ashtray but then I quit 30 years ago.
Yes…I guess about 26 years ago for me. It was very difficult to find the beauty in those butts, believe me…
I will admit tho, even now in an occasional dream I am a in a situation where I am lighting up a cigarette…go figure..lol
As a non-smoking survivor of two smokers, I was intrigued by how you found beauty in cigarettes. Your images, so evocative and intimate, truly portray the beauty in the ugly!
I speak with my patients about smoking, and I have learned from what they tell me. Tobacco is not an inert substance, it is a leaf, an appendage of a living amazing plant. It interacts with us and we with it. You can’t just tell people to quit like you might tell a child to clean the dishes, when people smoke they are having a RELATIONSHIP with an amazing complex living thing… a very dangerous living thing. It is easy to forget that when we see it bundled and packaged and socked right into the center of our behavioral response circuitry. Your poem has caught the vivid relationship aspect of addiction very well. It would be so amazing if it were not so dangerous, seeing people daily who suffer from the consequences really brings me a sorrow, it is not fun to feel like you are drowning all the time and yet never being able to die quite soon enough. I am glad for those who were able to quit and empathize with those who haven’t, just keep trying and realize it’s ok to recognize how great the relationship was, but I hope one can use every tool to leave any truly toxic relationship. And if you can’t, doesn’t mean you’re weak, doesn’t mean it’s a liturgical requirement for every non-smoker to hate the smell of smoke, just means it’s tough, but y’all are worth it keep trying. Beautiful poem Mish, thanks.
I am not a smoker, Lona. Hope that was clear. I smoked for about 11 years but quit over 26 years ago. Thanks for your thoughtful and professional comments. I lost my dad at 48 and my brother at 36…both from heart attacks. I have enough risk factors as it is. I do understand the addiction because I was addicted to cigarettes for that period of my life. I never tried and tried to quit. My belief was if you want to quit, you just do it, no matter how hard it is. I empathize with those who have had more difficulty with it. Thanks so much, Lona.
Yes Mish, it is clear that you had quit (yay! You escaped!) 🙂 My ramble was a reflection on the multiple comments on the post, some current smokers, most saying they have quit (yay again), I am struck by how many former smokers say they no longer can even stand the the smell or the proximity to tobacco. Those former smokers who long for it still decades later tend to be quieter about it, and they are a tender case for me. It is almost as if there is a taboo against admitting you might still desire something you have abandoned because it was toxic, as if everyone should expect a transformative experience of truly beating something. And that is why I love your poem so much, it shows how wonderful and stimulating that relationship was, and gives a certain voice to those who are trying to quit, or still long to resume even though they shoulder on. Ah, the diversity of life, variety of experience, that is part of poetry’s soul, and so well reflected in your poem, I especially loved
“Seduce me
In salt and pepper slag
Lipsticked and kissed
You are my swag”
Well done!
Oh that love affair with cigarettes! That was me once, many, many years ago. Love is blind, you know 🙂
What an excellent poem!
Great job finding beauty in these slave drivers.
Absolute seduction. Loved them once.
Good to be able to look back at the pleasure you felt then, without being tempted. Love the title!
There was a time that it was cool, everyone smoked it seemed, glad I don’t smoke anymore. My partner still does, really doesn’t want to quit. I don’t love him less. Perhaps we all have our own sinful pleasures? Death will come soon enough, smoking or not.