Cigar Poetry

[Mark Twain]

It's short. Listen to Gerald Stern read it aloud here.

Context is pretty interesting, though it is a sad poem. I had no idea his family was in the cigar biz.

 

[Set-In-Stone]

I wrote this in a hotel room smoking a stogie after work one day. It was a Thursday and I had just spent the past
2 weeks doing masonry restoration in an active prison's boiler room. Needless to say, it was torture. This read is
an interpretation of my time spent at Woodbourne Correction Facility in NY. Hope you enjoy... Open for criticism.


" I Have Seen Hell "


I have seen Hell. Its interior has a intoxicating mixture of block walls, brick, wire-meshed glass with an occasional,
but very precise hole lined with rebar. I see thin slivers of hope squeezing between the steel rebar. My brain producing images
of times of joy, and prosperity....... Then, just as quickly as I dream, I am thrown into its depths. Through a small
hole in a Armageddon floor, I crawl to my den.

Below, veins run rapid, bending and twisting. No blood running threw, just high pressured steam reaching temperatures one
has never felt. It radiates and fuels Hell and its prisoners. No Satan, or demons watching over. No ghouls, or ghosts. Just me.
Myself and my work. Time stands still. I know the days are shorter, but it seems to never end.

Sweat forms on my forehead and socializes with insulation, dirt, and debris. They form a terrifying union before rioting down my
face into my eyes and mouth. In the distance, a loud steam siren sounds, but my work does not cease. The work continues on, hard
and slow as if to remind me where I am. After what felt like eternity, I am unable to take it anymore, I crawl back out of my den. The
slivers of hope I have seen before are getting bigger and brighter. I continue towards its call.

Suddenly, with out any warning, darkness is split in two. An angel dressed in blue stands in front of me. My mind is racing with the
same images of joy I had earlier. It is hard but I am able to get a grasp and contain myself. "He has a key" I quietly whimpered. And with
a simple turn of that key, I am resurrected. Back from the dead. Birds chirp, the sun shines, and the wind flirts with my face.

I turn around in disbelief. " What was that " I asked myself as I regained consciousness. My eyes focus, and I suddenly realize. . . "I have just seen Hell ", but I'm alive. . . and tomorrow is a new day.


written and edited by Austen R. Miller