The smoke from a cigarette bleeds exultant and haphazard,
its white length a smooth segment of time during which
the celebrant takes their pleasure, as with a cheroot,
notionally after sex, or before gunfights
in The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly.

Once we had no option but to be casually asphyxiated
by the thick rolling upper deck smog
if we couldn’t find a seat below
on the 19A to school.

Now outlaws gather outside Grogan’s
in reduced and disenfranchised bands.
Music wails, the camera frames each in turn;
disgruntled, twitchy, about to fire.

– Alan Murphy