Twenty Years Later

I’ve tried them all:

American,

Russian,

Cuban,

French,

Turkish,

tipped,

untipped,

low tar,

high tar,

mild strength,

full strength,

nub-ends in the bad times,

Havanas in the good times;

I even tried a pipe

(to enhance my poetic image).

I was so cool…

a pack of Old Holborn,

a wad of Auld Shag,

a tin of Rasta-Man Special;

a full packet with six pints,

a crafty blow with the factory bad-lads,

10 cigars on Christmas day,

a hurried gasp in the office toilet;

a rasping drag in the garden shed.

Took about twenty puffs to start,

cost about twenty grand to do,

took about twenty years to stop,

knocked about twenty years off my life.