Tag: creative writing

Have a Cigar: Casa Turrent Serie 1901 Robusto

Chris Khatsch5 Comments

Name: Casa Turrent Serie 1901 Robusto

Country: Mexico

Shape: Parejo

Size: (5 1/4 inches x 50)

Strength: Medium to Full

I could smell
the leather armchair of a philosopher
misplaced and forgotten in a chocolate factory.

I could taste
the sweetened pain of a man biting on a leather belt
in a torture chamber.

Where does the sadism come from?

I could taste earth, wood, and chickpeas
dissolved in coffee —
muddy, Arabic coffee.

I was smoking a cigar
and nursing a twelve-year-old whisky.

“This is a good cigar,” I said to my wife
who was busy witnessing the synthesis of
people, music, and alcohol
in a failed state.

The music was loud,
the lights were dim,
the people were
cocktail-drinking, popcorn-eating zombies
wasting their lives.

Or… Were they trapped in this city
and the best they could do was
party?

And was I not like them? There,
burning valuable time.
Waiting, maybe, for something.

I was there smoking
time
like I could smoke eternity
without ever feeling bored.

I was there blurring reality
with smoke.


Paradiso Clasico Cigar Review. Beirut, Lebanon.

Have a Cigar: Paradiso Clasico Robusto

Chris KhatschLeave a comment

Name: Paradiso Clasico Robusto

Country: Nicaragua

Shape: Parejo

Size: Robusto (5 1/2 inches x 50)

Strength: Medium to Full

Notes of coffee, dark chocolate, pepper, and bread. I lit this Paradiso cigar just to smoke something while I worked overtime. It was close to midnight, it had been a long day, and I needed to reward myself while working. I couldn’t wait anymore.

Work — an anaconda wrapped around me,
and I cannot withstand the constriction coil.
Work — labor,
toil.
God, I’m so tired,
dehumanized,
and bored.

Oh, I need a cigar.

Economy — an invisible monster
that feeds off time,
men’s finite amount of time.

Labor —
it is the “productive” digestion of time.

Laborer — also someone whose fingertips peck the keyboard
for more than eight hours a day
for money.

Employee — one who unknowingly worships Ponos,
one who offers himself as a sacrifice
on the altar of business growth.

Salary — like digested food is shit,
digested time is money.

Capital — shit that multiplies itself.
It is like bad bacteria.

Money — “Eat shit and see you tomorrow, buddy.”

Oh, I need a cigar.

And, well, I am working on my laptop now.
Look at me working now.
It’s almost midnight, and every task
is another log in the flame of fury.

Oh, I need a cigar.

Have a Cigar: Condega Serie ‘F’ Magnum

Chris KhatschLeave a comment

Name: Condega Serie ‘F’ Magnum

Country: Nicaragua

Shape: Parejo

Size: Toro (6 1/2 inches x 52)

Strength: Medium to Full

In a folding picnic armchair
our man sat like a king on a hill
after a decisive battle.

The orange moon smiled before it was shrouded by the smoke
that crept upward
like a dead man’s soul.

A cheap cigar danced to the rhythm of classic rock songs
like a magician’s wand (burning)
like a conductor’s baton (on fire)
communicating musical ideas
celebrating life
despite the turmoil, tumult, and turbulence.

The cigar was a paint brush
and the night sky was an empty canvas.
Gray on black: an alluring belly dance.
Gray on black: the last breath of a soldier.

Our man felt a poem being written
somewhere in the near future,
a poem written phenomenologically
now.

“Yes, yes,” our man said right now.
“So the muses came like they often do
when they smell a cigar burn.”

And then he jotted down whatever came to him.