The Best Cigarette + Billy Collins

Dharma

The way the dog trots out the front door
every morning
without a hat or an umbrella,
without any money
or the keys to her doghouse
never fails to fill the saucer of my heart
with milky admiration.

Who provides a finer example
of a life without encumbrance—
Thoreau in his curtainless hut
with a single plate, a single spoon?
Gandhi with his staff and his holy diapers?

Off she goes into the material world
with nothing but her brown coat
and her modest blue collar,
following only her wet nose,
the twin portals of her steady breathing,
followed only by the plume of her tail.

If only she did not shove the cat aside
every morning
and eat all his food
what a model of self-containment she
would be,
what a paragon of earthly detachment.
If only she were not so eager
for a rub behind the ears,
so acrobatic in her welcomes,
if only I were not her god.

- Billy Collins

Forgetfulness

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even
forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

- Billy Collins

The Country

I wondered about you
when you told me never to leave
a box of wooden, strike-anywhere matches
lying around the house because the mice

might get into them and start a fire.
But your face was absolutely straight
when you twisted the lid down on the round tin
where the matches, you said, are always stowed.

Who could sleep that night?
Who could whisk away the thought
of the one unlikely mouse
padding along a cold water pipe

behind the floral wallpaper
gripping a single wooden match
between the needles of his teeth?
Who could not see him rounding a corner,

the blue tip scratching against a rough-hewn beam,
the sudden flare, and the creature
for one bright, shining moment
suddenly thrust ahead of his time—

now a fire-starter, now a torch-bearer
in a forgotten ritual, little brown druid
illuminating some ancient night.
Who could fail to notice,

lit up in the blazing insulation,
the tiny looks of wonderment on the faces
of his fellow mice, one-time inhabitants
of what once was your house in the country?

—Billy Collins

Flock

It has been calculated that each copy of the Gutenburg Bible
required the skins of 300 sheep.

I can see them
squeezed into the holding pen
behind the stone building
where the printing press is housed.

All of them squirming around
to find a little room
and looking so much alike
it would be nearly impossible to count them.

And there is no telling which one of them
will carry the news
that the Lord is a Shepherd,
one of the few things
they already know.

- Billy Collins

The Revenant

I am the dog you put to sleep,
as you like to call the needle of oblivion,
come back to tell you this simple thing:
I never liked you--not one bit.

When I licked your face,
I thought of biting off your nose.
When I watched you toweling yourself dry,
I wanted to leap and unman you with a snap.

I resented the way you moved,
your lack of animal grace,
the way you would sit in a chair to eat,
a napkin on your lap, knife in your hand.

I would have run away,
but I was too weak, a trick you taught me
while I was learning to sit and heel,
and--greatest of insults--shake hands without a hand.

I admit the sight of the leash
would excite me
but only because it meant I was about
to smell things you had never touched.

You do not want to believe this,
but I have no reason to lie.
I hated the car, the rubber toys,
disliked your friends and, worse, your relatives.

The jingling of my tags drove me mad.
You always scratched me in the wrong place.
All I ever wanted from you
was food and fresh water in my metal bowls.

While you slept, I watched you breathe
as the moon rose in the sky.
It took all of my strength
not to raise my head and howl.

Now I am free of the collar,
the yellow raincoat, monogrammed sweater,
the absurdity of your lawn,
and that is all you need to know about this place

except what you already supposed
and are glad it did not happen sooner--
that everyone here can read and write,
the dogs in poetry, the cats and the others in prose.

- Billy Collins

The Best Cigarette

There are many that I miss
having sent my last one out a car window
sparking along the road one night, years ago.

The heralded one, of course:
after sex, the two glowing tips
now the lights of a single ship;
at the end of a long dinner
with more wine to come
and a smoke ring coasting into the chandelier;
or on a white beach,
holding one with fingers still wet from a swim.

How bittersweet these punctuations
of flame and gesture;
but the best were on those mornings
when I would have a little something going
in the typewriter,
the sun bright in the windows,
maybe some Berlioz on in the background.
I would go into the kitchen for coffee
and on the way back to the page,
curled in its roller,
I would light one up and feel
its dry rush mix with the dark taste of coffee.

Then I would be my own locomotive,
trailing behind me as I returned to work
little puffs of smoke,
indicators of progress,
signs of industry and thought,
the signal that told the nineteenth century
it was moving forward.
That was the best cigarette,
when I would steam into the study
full of vaporous hope
and stand there,
the big headlamp of my face
pointed down at all the words in parallel lines.

- Billy Collins

The Best Cigarette

another reason I don't keep a gun in the house
shoveling snow with the buddha (hear)
marginalia (hear)
afternoon with irish cows
walking across the atlantic
intro
consolation
forgetfulness (hear, read)
workshop
morning
driving myself to a poetry reading
wolf
purity
the art of drowning
nostalgia (hear)
candle hat
sweetalk instructions to artist
pin-up
flames
Saturday morning
the afterlife
man in space
aristotle
wires of the night
history of weather
the best cigarette (hear, read)
invention of the sax
child development
on reading in the morning paper that dreams may be only nonsense
the first dream
japan
thesaurus
nightclub (hear)

Lots of care and attention was taken to make this CD. We rented the best microphones, employed the talents of Ramsey Gouda, an engineer of questionable Egyptian decent and produced a full digital recording - probably a first for poetry. Despite all that attention to detail, it was 95 degrees in the studio (Ramsey's kitchen), and Billy logged two solid days of recording with no fan or a/c.

Scott Ramsayer (no relation) was patient and financially very understanding as he mastered the sessions. Bob Feinegle at Monsterdisc gave us a break on the CD pressing and has been our loyal printer ever since (8 years).

The ORIGINAL jacket was designed and printed by John Upchurch at Fireproof Press. He did great design/printing for Wilco, Shellac, Tortoise, Chris Ware, The Baffler and more. Here's a quick example of some his business card work. Don't get giddy - Fireproof took its last order in 1998.

The first 2,000 CD cases were all handprinted and assembled -- an act of beauty and foolishness. The current CD case is a replica converted by the design duo Quick & Faust. The Original won awards for best packaging from Communication Arts and the Indie Awards.

Below is a silkscreen poster that we handprinted in 1997 to "promote" the cassette and CD. The printer (whose name sadly escapes me) worked in the same filthy loft as Fireproof, where they printed posters for Pavement, Smashing Pumpkins, Urge Overkill and more. You can see many of his (nameless man's) posters in John Cusack's apartment in the movie High Fidelity. In the case of our "promotional" poster, it was hung in exactly 1 (one) bookstore that we are aware of.

The Apple that Astonished Paris

Index of poems (*only in this volume)

Vanishing Point
Walking Across the Atlantic
The Blue
Schoolsville
Driving with Animals
Strange Lands
Tuscany
Tourist: Dromahair, Co. Sligo
Flying to a Funeral
Etymology
Hunger
Hart Crane
Winter Syntax
Plight of the Troubadour
The Frankenstein Poet
Lost
The Past
Fur
Flames
Books
On Closing Anna Karenina
Indoors
Death
Remembering Dreams
Earthling
Child Development
Putting Down the Cat
The Lesson
Lowell, Mass.
Programs
The Morning After My Death
Personal History
Bar Time
Insomnia
Another Reason Why I Don't Keep a Gun in the House
Cancer
Embrace
The Rival Poet
My Number
Poem
Hopeless but Not Serious
Advice to Writers
Introduction to Poetry
Desire
The Brooklyn Museum of Art

Questions About Angels

American Sonnet
A History of Weather
First Reader
Student of Clouds
Candle Hat
The Death of Allegory
Reading Myself to Sleep
The Norton Anthology of English Literature
The Hunt
Forgetfulness
Questions About Angels
A Wonder of the World
Mappamundi
The First Geniuses
The Afterlife
The Dead
Endangered
Going Out for Cigarettes
Purity
Cliché
Field Guide
Putti in the Night
The Man in the Moon
Horseman, Pass By!
Memento Mori
The Last Man on Earth
Come Running
Modern Peasant
Instructions to the Artist
Weighing the Dog
One Life to Live
The Wires of the Night
Axiom
Vade Mecum
Not Touching
Night Sand
Love in the Sahara
Invective
The Life of Riley: A Definitive Biography
Jack
Metamorphosis
Saturday Morning
Late Show
Pie Man
Wolf
The History Teacher
Pensee
The Discovery of Scat
Dog
The Willies
One Reading in the Morning Paper That Dreams May Be Only Nonsense
Rip Van Winkle
English Country House
Nostalgia

The Art of Drowning

Consolation
Osso Buco
Directions
Influence
Water Table
Reading in a Hammock
Print
Sunday Morning with the Sensational Nightinggales
Cheers
The Best Cigarette
Metropolis
Days
Tuesday, June 4, 1991
The Art of Drowning
Canada
The Biography of a Cloud
Death Beds
Conversion
Horizon
The City of Tomorrow
Thesaurus
Fiftieth Birthday Eve
On Turning Ten
Shadow
Workshop
Keats's Handwriting
Budapest
My Heart
Romanticism
Monday Morning
Dancing Towards Bethlehem
The First Dream
Sweet Talk
Dream
Man in Space
Philosophy
While Eating a Pear
The End of the World
Center
Design
The Invention of the Saxophone
Medium
Driving Myself to a Poetry Reading
Pinup
Piano Lessons
Exploring the Coast of Birdland
The Blues
Nightclub
Some Final Words