LAST CIGARETTE by LEWIS WARSH

39. LAST CIGARETTE. New York, NY: A Rest Press, 2005. 4¾x7¼" 20 pages. (P)

Laserjet text with yellow, black and beige silkscreen and letterpress covers, pamphlet sewn tête-bêche chapbook with an excerpt from Vertigo by Martha Ronk. Published in conjunction with the Segue Reading Series at the Bowery Poetry Club curated by Matvei Yankelevich and Anna Moschovakis. Cover designed and printed by Patrick Masterson on French Co. paper. Typesetting by Ryan Murphy in Adobe Garamond. 

“This poem has eleven parts, plus a coda. Nine of the sections are short prose paragraphs. I wanted everything as various as possible. Sometimes one sentence follows another, as if telling a story. Sometimes the sentences have no obvious connection. But the tone is the same throughout—ominous, detached, confessional, anticipatory, resigned.”

This is just the beginning of someone else’s story. If we make a mistake the first time, we can try again. If we lose our balance we might fall to the bottom. Being in denial is just another form of stupidity. The doctor who was on duty wrote me a prescription for painkillers. I offer my guests a plate of bowtie cookies. It occurs to me that my audience consists of no one but you.