One pack at a time
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
how trusting of us, to believe that tobacco companies want to
help us quit smoking, I see the commercials nightly, gentle
kind, homey, concerned for our well-being, wanting to clean away
the black lungs among us,
it reminds me of some fairy tale from childhood, a kindly old man
in a robe draped over his friendly demeanor offering a poison apple
to an unsuspecting innocent,
but we know there are no innocents left and we fool no one with the
platitudes and lawsuits that fly by the news hour like chaos whirling
in flames, visible for only a moment, then shuffled away in favor of
new smoke from new fires,
how strange we are, pretending to be less calloused to the slight of
hand and national policy of corporate profit making, filling one pocket
with cash and paying hush money out of the other, such sanity making
is ingenious, but lacks any finesse or style,
just gangster thinking with a corporate white-collar and a colgate smile,
deadly when exposed and lethal when left alone, and too many minds
have been left alone, enough it seems to leave reason a relative term and
truth definable—needing lawyers to make sense of the non-sensical,
abandoning the masses to adopt by-stander apathy as a suitable proxy
for moral absolutes and contentment only as deep as the luster on the
latest symbol of being “sucsessful,” a car, a home, a well developed bank
balance,
but across the street mothers are beat and children molested, mountains
of anti-depressants, anti-anxiety drugs, medications to fill out the emptiness
of silent crimes committed by desperate people, sins of the father
no one will talk about,
except to point the finger at the other guy,
so maybe I’ll take Phillip Morris up on their offer and use their advice to
quit a filthy habit that continues to threaten their bulging bank accounts—one pack
at a time.
help us quit smoking, I see the commercials nightly, gentle
kind, homey, concerned for our well-being, wanting to clean away
the black lungs among us,
it reminds me of some fairy tale from childhood, a kindly old man
in a robe draped over his friendly demeanor offering a poison apple
to an unsuspecting innocent,
but we know there are no innocents left and we fool no one with the
platitudes and lawsuits that fly by the news hour like chaos whirling
in flames, visible for only a moment, then shuffled away in favor of
new smoke from new fires,
how strange we are, pretending to be less calloused to the slight of
hand and national policy of corporate profit making, filling one pocket
with cash and paying hush money out of the other, such sanity making
is ingenious, but lacks any finesse or style,
just gangster thinking with a corporate white-collar and a colgate smile,
deadly when exposed and lethal when left alone, and too many minds
have been left alone, enough it seems to leave reason a relative term and
truth definable—needing lawyers to make sense of the non-sensical,
abandoning the masses to adopt by-stander apathy as a suitable proxy
for moral absolutes and contentment only as deep as the luster on the
latest symbol of being “sucsessful,” a car, a home, a well developed bank
balance,
but across the street mothers are beat and children molested, mountains
of anti-depressants, anti-anxiety drugs, medications to fill out the emptiness
of silent crimes committed by desperate people, sins of the father
no one will talk about,
except to point the finger at the other guy,
so maybe I’ll take Phillip Morris up on their offer and use their advice to
quit a filthy habit that continues to threaten their bulging bank accounts—one pack
at a time.