Get That Cough Seen To......

.....because it could be serious.  The current advertising campaign on TV and radio regarding lung cancer is important.  Speaking as one whose personal experience has been touched with this killer disease, I'm right behind this health campaign.

Cancer Sticks

Eyes hooded against the rising smoke

Curling and swirling around

Fingers cupped, cradling precious embers

Huddling together outside the doorway

Inhaling deeply

Lungs expanding, taking the hit

Shivering with cold

Envious of warmer company

And half-drunk beers waiting inside 

Nestling in pockets and hands

Perfectly packaged poison

Thin tubes, fine filters aligned

Threads of tobacco cut and shaped,

White rolls awaiting their turn for ignition

And to deliver their payload

Of nicotine, toxic tar

And complex chemical compounds 

Persistent chesty cough, wheezy laugh

Ash-tray smells of discarded dog-ends

Reeking clothes and sour breath

Burnt-out aromas, tortured taste-buds,

Small price to pay for a short-term fix

Of their drug of choice 

A death’s head staring

Skull and crossbones glaring

With its now-irrelevant warning

Against this unhealthy habit

And the guilty pleasure of the addicted 

So these hospital wards,

Beds white and aligned

Oxygen cylinders and masks waiting

Welcome the punters

Smokers and chokers

Grasping sheets, gasping to breathe

Desperate to inflate, if just a little

The shattered remnants

Of their failing bronchia 

Glassy-eyed, hollow-cheeked

Staring into middle distance

Dulled by palliative pain relief

They dream of the old space outside

And the chance of one last cigarette

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2012