Self-Destruction – Poem

Safi, Morocco

As if your body were  just a corpse

As if it were a hateful enemy of yours,

You’re mangling it without remorse.

As if the grey air, your wheezy breath

Were not enough to ruin your health,

Sent inside like fire eating logs in a heath.

As if you already lived in atmosphere,

As if your life were safe from any fear,

As if your soul was cheap not dear;

You are killing it with just a tiny weapon,

A paper stick beating you into the open,

As if you needed soot, your life to blacken,

As if it had a taste, a pleasant perfume,

You burn it and your life into fume;

It decides on, ratifies your own doom.

I see you run to its hold in a haste

You  light, inhale it, you find its foul taste

A relief, ignoring its lurking waste.

You don’t know what you dearly miss

While keeping it betweem your lips

In a long, slow, breezing and sooty kiss.

It snakes inside you, biting your lungs,

You feel its illusionary lust not its fangs;

You generously or indifferently share

The danger of which you ‘re not aware.

If it had the power of strength, a magic spell

The whole world would live just on its smell;

If its power made you forget your own worries,

The paper stick’d be as scarce as rare currencies

And all the written words’d revolve its burning fee.

And the smoke would not flee the productive bees.

If your smoking idols were sane with their stink,

As you  fancy, in their life and their show-biz,

If none of them ‘re distroyed by the heady drink

And their lung burning, raptly performing their due,

Ignoring its danger and those silly fans like you,

Not wanting to think of the crimes that ensue,

Innocently contributing to legal, civil murders,

Starting by themselves, ramping to the others,

Those gently coaxed into the vice, easy to fool,

Caring more of fame and less of the human soul.

© Morocco World News. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, rewritten or redistributed