RIDING THE WALL OF DEATH

I don't know what triggered the memory the other day but chocolate cigarettes popped into my head. You could buy them when I was a child. All American brands. We used to pretend to smoke. It sounds very weird today but at the time it seemed normal. Everyone smoked back then. I sketched this out.

Candy cigarettes never cut the mustard.

Sickly sweet white sticks with glowing scarlet tips.

Suck them until they turned sticky most unsatisfactory.

We favoured chocolate cigarettes

bought from Parrs on the way to the matinee.

One of us would open a packet

and offer them round just like our parents did,

pretend to smoke until the end got too soggy

then peel the paper away reveal cylinders

of cheap chocolate pocked with holes.

Camel, Chesterfield, Lucky Strike.

A double whammy indoctrination

the normalisation of a lethal addiction

plus the superiority of American culture.

Well, I mean, that’s Elvis up there on the screen

riding the wall of death until he fell off,

one hot August night in 1977.

It is far from complete and the end is weak. It really needs more work but I thought I'd show you this work in progress anyway. Watch this space.

Here's an old cover by Iron and Wine.

Until next time.