Song of the Shisha

I have smoked my nargileh with holy men & singer-songwriters,
I have smoked my nargileh with Dennis Kucinich & Alan Keyes,
With lovers & fighters,
Recherché, white tea, cheese,
And we dabbled in America, our eyes rolled upward, stolid & terse.

I discussed the end of racism with the lost generations,
I demonstrated blowing a perfect smoke ring to a bookstore oligarch,
And seeds from the plantations,
Waiting for the walking shark,
This talk-show knows no boundaries, our editors & our patience.

There was a gay Marfan who laid on the ceiling,
The chandelier grimacing & the fog of our exhalations,
Laws & lawyers & disco fleeing,
Micromanaging the painting of the white fence,
We turned down the radio & let the conversation freeze in feeling.

I left my prostate upon the crystal pavement,
And with a right-wing blowhard covered in boils,
Library's circular descent,
Munching on his own snaky coils,
Let's stay here, the waitress has been tipped thirty percent.

This non-manufactured dialog broadcast to the nations,
The sensation between our nostrils & sacred truth,
Eternal inhalations,
Forty-five Spider Monkeys climbing on Jenny Ruth,
I will invite this galaxy to the table, the midair thickly with suspense.

We must renew the bowl, now pass me the proboscis,
Our goals & coals are finest lemon-tree wood,
Crucified on criss-crosses,
Fertile in the darkest mud,
One last old man joins us on the rug, let the smoke reinvigorate his fossils.