DRINKING AND SMOKING

There is something bourgeois about

A drink/smoke dichotomy, as though

Indulgence of both alcohol and tobacco confirmed

An antinatural/subnatural relativity,

Applicable to an atomic age.

Those who are not subnatural

But antinatural ... will only drink.

Those who are not antinatural

But subnatural ... will only smoke.

The first category will drink canned beer,

The second category … roll their own cigarettes,

With or without dope.

In between will come the beer/tobacco compromise

Of antinatural/subnatural atomists,

A compromise never more democratic

Than when the beer is in pint glasses

And the tobacco in cigars,

Though still existing

On the relatively bureaucratic level

Of bottled beer and cigarettes.

Anyway, if drinking is antinatural

And smoking subnatural,

The one corresponding to a wavicle equivalent,

The other to a particle equivalent,

Then we need not hesitate

To equate eating with a natural absolutism

And sniffing, by contrast,

With a supernatural absolutism,

The one preceding alcohol

In the atomic-particle age of the Kingdom,

The other destined to succeed tobacco

In the electron-wavicle age of the Centre,

Eating as confirmation

Of a kind of atomic relativity

Between eater and eaten,

Sniffing as confirmation

Of a kind of electron absolutism

Between sniffer and thing sniffed.