There Are Worse Things

There Are Worse Things

Are there worse things

than passive smoking

in all probability?

Government public information

warns the unwary and unwise

that excessive sugar

floods food these days;

harmful trailers, on colour television,

spoon-feeding the easily consumed

and Rome burns while

obesity broadens its long arm.

And look here: alcohol is cheap

causing carnage on the streets,

disobedience and unrest.

Benefit scroungers are rife,

pram raiding high street food banks,

kindling deficit and hardship,

soaring costs, rising so fast

that soon it won’t be worth living at all.

They’re not joking.

But passive smoking.

You raise me an eyebrow.

I raise you an epidemic whisper

of contagious cancer.

Certainly, there must be a link,

it makes the world stink,

clings fast to our smoky clothes.

Don’t waste your tears on smokers,

banish them quick from propping up bars,

and dripping ash from idling cars,

flicking simmered cinder on the tar.

A sound investment in healthcare:

blitz all glamour from the card package,

extort tax to limit their damage.

It’s rumoured that perfumed mist

hisses like deadly poison

through forked teeth and pursed lips.

And fond they are of tonguing,

spotlessly clean,

the ashtray’s flecked droppings.

No, there’s not much worse

than inhaling someone’s selfish smoke:

It’s like a cheap cladded structure,

smouldering on cityscape skyline

that incinerates in silent screams

its citizens, aflame in their dreams,

howling long into an eternal night

from which they will never wake,

flounder and grasp each other, 
child, father and mother
crumble, dazed to death 
through choking corridors,

in search of the unbuilt outdoor.

A construct robust as your austere

fag packet, shoved up, thoughtless

perpendicular, burning too high

for fire escape or ladders.

Well heeled and fat,

flaccid Government bean counters

sit florid, in their well won fresh air,

sip cool bottled, 
sugar free highland spring water,

check tick lists, pat pockets 
and trouser profit margins;

feeling toasty with a single malt

condemn us to smoking holes.