The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    Richard Day's picture

    An Ode to Days Passed: The End of Life as I Have Known It


    All is lost.

    I have learned to survive on very little. I figure things out. I cannot figure how to become a contributing member of society, but I know how to make coffee last, how to go grocery shopping with less than nine dollars and make the food last a week. I have grown fat so I really could survive the next month on almost nothing.

    There was a time I wore my suits tailor fit and ever so often I would just grab five or six new dress shirts and pay a little extra for nice shoes.  I have learned how to get by wearing rags and not caring a whit.

    I have learned how to live alone and be alone. I have rituals that get me through the day.

    In the last six months, I got an older computer and figured out how to legally get on the net for a very small amount of money. When I cannot figure it out sometimes, I get lucky.

    I am a liberal. When I had no money as a child, I was a liberal. When I had some money as an adult I was a liberal. Now under the poverty line, I am still a liberal.

    Government is good when it is run by the proper people. We seem to have the best and the brightest at the helm.

    But I am mad at government today. For all intents and purposes, they have taken away my one true love.

    They will not let me smoke anymore. I have not been able to afford cigarettes for five or six years. I figured out how to make my own. I could not, for the life of me figure out how to use one of those machines and I still cannot roll a cigarette.

    I figured out how to use those tubes that cost a penny a piece and buy tobacco in the bag and get the tobacco in the tubes. I have my own way of doing it but it works. I have grown addicted to them as I make them. I really do not like store bought anymore. Except for Marlboros. No one can beat a marlboro.

    A bag that would last me ten days cost a little over eleven bucks.As of yesterday, that same bag costs 33 bucks or more. The tobacco shop has not figured it out yet.

    The Feds have now made it impossible for me to smoke.My one true love is gone.


    Life's such a bitch
    Oh do I dare
    Me without a fag in my hand
    No waft in the air
    Send me some smokes
    There's got to be smokes
    There ought to be smokes

    Am I a pig?
    So lower class
    I just keep moaning my fate
    While drunk on my ass
    Where are the smokes
    Send me the smokes

    I have my rituals down
    After awakening at dawn I know where I should go
    Brewing some coffee in my kitchen while in the attire
    That I like best
    All by myself

    Oh I crave life
    Hold it so dear
    I like my coffee and my beer
    But I'm full of fear
    So  where are my smokes
    Geez I need a smoke
    I need one right here

    Fall on my ass
    With nary a tear
    Losing my real love this late
    In my waning years
    But where are my smokes
    There ought to be smokes
    They gotta be here




    [Hats off to Send in the Clowns]