Tag: poem

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.

Cumpay Corona Cigar Review.

Have a Cigar: Cumpay Corona

Chris KhatschLeave a comment

Name: Cumpay Corona

Country: Nicaragua

Shape: Parejo

Size: Corona (5 1/2 inches x 42)

Strength: Mild

I turn my back on the sun and light a cigar.
The sunset and the sea mean nothing to me.

I am overwhelmed with thoughts.
There’s always so much work to do,
always so much work left
for me to do.

It’s like my mind can never leave
the workplace.
My mind can never punch out.

I’m on standby all the time,
forever ready to receive an email
outside working hours.

No matter how efficient I am,
I will never accomplish enough
to deserve a good break.

I draw and blow white smoke
as businesses live and die.

Ghosts of CEOs and COOs slither out of my mouth,
and they all look like the man
in Edvard Munch’s The Scream.
They all look the same to me.

I want to scream, too,
but the neighbors may think I’m crazy.
So,
I turn my back on the sun and light a cigar.

Have a Cigar: Don Rafa Churchill

Chris Khatsch1 Comment

Name: Don Rafa Churchill

Country: Nicaragua

Shape: Parejo

Size: Churchill (7 inches x 50)

Strength: Medium

I woke up with a hangover,
ready to work on another hangover.
I am like a Sisyphus whose bottle refills
every time it is emptied.

This is my life, then.
This is where I am now.
Madness cannot be very far from here.
You can see that in my sunken eyes —
how exhausted I am!
And burned out. And bored out.

In between hangovers, there is some
suffering
and a lot of drinking.
In between hangovers, there is the life
that I never wanted… except
the love story that’s being written.

I smoke cigars, too, when I drink.
Most of the times, the cheapest cigars I can find.
Sometimes,
cigars that burn like Shakespeare’s plays in a fireplace.

And you can smell the fire in my beard
and all the verses I have burned
under the open sky.

When I drink, I like to have a pen
and a notebook in close proximity, too.
But I see how this may mislead the onlooker.

You must never mistake me for a poet
even if you see me scribble
and spit out words like active volcanoes spit out lava.

Where I come from, poems give birth to themselves.
The poet is the drunkard who happens to be there when that happens.

Where I come from, the poet has not mastered the language.
On the contrary, he has given up on language;
he merely uses it out of boredom,
distorts it, abuses it…

Where I come from, the poem is only read by the poet
who will forget
everything.

In the morning, nothing will exist but a hangover
that means nothing at all.