Prize for worst pipe poem.
Doesn't rhyme, has no consistent meter.
Like a slam poem without line breaks.
A+
Pause, said my soul, stop a while and ponder the wonders to where this pipe will lead you.
Pause, said my muse, don’t get swept up in the whirl and whorl of words and thoughts and dreams that pipe smoke inspires when you exhale.
Instead…
Take the time to smoke, smoke, smoke, and be glad.
Smoke and ponder all the moments and minutiae that led up to this moment,
From the seeds to the sowing, from the watering to the tending,
From the harvest to the storage barn, from the fermenting to the cutting, from the packing to the charring light, from the beginning the end,
From all that came from before to now, A to Z, alpha to omega.
Pause and ponder the glory of creation that is held in a humble bowl of briar, and be enlightened by the warm glow you hold in your hand.
A briar in the palm does not make the palm of martyrs but it is still a sainted thing.
The smoke from my pipe trickled from the corner of my mouth and it wrapped around my ear, tickling it and whispering into it.
“I love you,” my pipe smoke said to me as it caressed my palette and my spirit.
“I love you,” my pipe smoke said before it was even lit.
“I love you,” my pipe tobacco said while it was still entombed, packed dense, inside its tin.
The flame of my charring light set this love free.
Love.
Lonely fools crave love and they find imitations of it in hard liquor and in watered-down wine, in women-for-hire,
They find it in Hollywood phantasms, cheap pornography, and in saccharine songs that extol the superficial and artificial virtues of love.
True love, real love is hard to find if you don’t know where to look for it.
Love is ethereal. Pipe smoke is ethereal.
Real love is the foundation of a life lived well.
Something done well is its own reward.
Ask any pipe if it has been loved well and a good pipe will tell you, Yes.
Yes.
Every pipe that has been smoked has been loved and it has loved its companion right back, giving back as much, if not more, than it was asked.
My soul beckoned me to pause awhile to savor the flavor of the smoke my pipe offered me.
I listened to my soul. I listened to my conscience.
Practice makes perfect and perfection is a grace for which we train ourselves over years and years of tongue bite and oxidized vulcanite bits.
Love has a stinger. Love has a filter. Love also has no rules when it comes to smoking a pipe.
True love comes to those who practice its virtues.
Briar, brylon, meerschaum, cob....
When the pipe is right, all is well in the world.
We get an intimation of glory, glory, glory when we smoke a pipe well.
We get a hint of what lies beyond this mortal veil, what awaits us when we shuffle us this mortal coil.
Dump a pile of dottle and ash and what is left?
The spirit of a smoke remains to tell a tale of reveries and flights of fancy, of epiphanies and prophecies that are all as true as gospel.
A pipe smoked well is a taste of heaven.
My soul gave me good advice when it told me to pause and ponder what was happening in my pipe and what was happening in me.
God blesses those who smoke a pipe,
They have tasted heaven.