Smoke Rings From My Pipe
All the long day's weariness is done I'm free at last to do just as I will Take out my pipe, admire the setting sun Practice the art of simply sitting still Thank God I have this briar bowl to fill, I leave the world with all its hopeless hype, Its pressures, and its ever-ringing till, And let it go in smoke rings from my pipe The hustle and the bustle, these I shun The tasks that trouble and the cares that kill, The false idea that there's a race to run, The pushing of that weary stone uphill, The wretched i-phone's all-insistent trill, Whingers and whiners, each with their own gripe, I pack them in tobacco leaves until They're blown away in smoke rings from my pipe And then at last my real work is begun, My chance to chant, to exercise the skill Of summoning the muses, one by one, To meet me in their temple, touch my quill (I have a pen but quills are better still) And when the soul is full, the time is ripe Kindle the fire of poetry that will Breathe and expand like smoke-rings from my pipe Prince I have done with grinding at the mill, These petty-pelting tyrants aren't my type, So lift me up and set me on a hill, A free man blowing smoke rings from his pipe.
~ Malcolm Guite