'Humphrey Bogart smoked his way through the 1942 classic Casablanca and a generation of men in the 1940s learned a romantic move when Paul Heinrich put two between his lips, lit them both and handed one to Bette Davis in Now, Voyeur . From: Smoking on the decline in films'I did that when I was young and impressionable before I became old and impressionable but now, with the cost of tobacco related illness climbing, there is debate here whether cigarettes should be sold only in plain brown wrappers and in the US whether films depicting smoking should be given an R rating.
Smoking at the dinner table.
Bronchial tubes blocked with foul matter,
My poor heart more pitter than patter.
At dinner I wheezed,
Coughed, farted and sneezed
And there were my lungs on the platter!
Oops! Won't do that again.
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Now that hurt! American people can be sold anything.
ReplyDeleteStafford that is horrid!
ReplyDeleteI have to admit that I have never smoked - my mother did and I still remember my sister and I standing watching her cooking chips, fag dangling out of her mouth with an inch of ash hanging from the end of it - put me off for life!
Having said that my dearly beloved son smokes the most awful roll-ups - do we always just do things to be different ot our parents?
Annell, it aint just Americans. And the way the big tobacco companies have moved into Asia, selling smoking as chic, is sickening.
ReplyDeletemadambutterfly, remember when parents used to say: 'You're too young to smoke'? I now say: 'You're too old to smoke!' Not that it does any good. I think the strongest line is: 'So, you're happy to pay multinational mongrels (who don't give a shit what happens to you) a fortune to make you sick!'
HA! That ALMOST makes me WANT to quit smoking. ALMOST.
ReplyDeleteIck!! Your piece dovetails nicely with mine this week!
ReplyDeleteThey certainly made it look glamorous in the old movies. I fell in love with Humphrey Bogart when I was about 8/9 and still love him. I hope they don't put an R rating on the movies because of the smoking, that would be rediculous (and young people don't watch them anyway - well, not much). Your poem shines a new light on the expression 'coughing your lungs up'.
ReplyDeleteI love your poem. As an RN for almost 45 years now, and an operating room nurse for some of that time, I could never believe the horrible black lungs, part of which were removed because of lung cancer to find the patient, awake a short while later in the recover room, asking for a cigarette!
ReplyDeleteSorry, you will not be invited again.
ReplyDeleteAny food landing on my plates will originate with me, not the guests.
Do they still smoke in the colonies?
In the mother country a smoker has been a pariah for a fair number of years now.
(I can say these things, because I am employed as an observer of the m.c.'s mores - thanks for coming to my blog; if you come back, you'll get used to me. I shall certainly be back here.)
Dear Stafford Ray: Hahahah! Good one! Chain smoking was thought "sexy" at one time. How did that happen? Poopaganda!
ReplyDeleteIt's 'Now, Voyager', Grandad. I love that movie. And yes - young people do watch old movies. x Rae
ReplyDeleteYou always manage to make me giggle. Thank you :)
ReplyDeleteLight Up!
ReplyDeleteAnd Your * Lights Go Out *
Draw Back!
And Your Lungs Will * Shout*
Suck Down!
And Your Stomach * Churns *
As Lungs They * Blacken *
And * Organs Burn *
Here's Lookin At Ya Bogie ...