ddoubleez

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The Great American Smoke-Off

By Shel Silverstien

In the laid back California town of sunny San Raphael
Lived a girl named Pearly Sweetcake, you prob’ly knew her well.
She’d been stoned fifteen of her eighteen years and the story was widely told
That she could smoke 'em faster than anyone could roll.
Her legend finally reached New York, that Grove Street walk-up flat
Where dwelt The Calistoga Kid, a beatnik from the past
With long browned lightnin’ fingers he takes a cultured toke
And says, “Hell, I can roll ‘em faster, Jim, than any chick can smoke!”

So a note gets sent to San Raphael, “For the Championship of the World
The Kid demands a smoke off!” "Well, bring him on!" says Pearl,
"I'll grind his fingers off his hands, he'll roll until he drops!"
Says Calistog, "I'll smoke that twist till she blows up and pops!”
So they rent out Yankee Stadium and the word is quickly spread
"Come one, come all, who walk or crawl, price – just two lids a head
And from every town and hamlet, over land and sea they speed
The world's greatest dopers, with the Worlds greatest weed
Hashishers from Morocco, hemp smokers from Peru
And the Shamnicks from Bagun who puff the deadly Pugaroo
And those who call it Light of Life and those that call it boo.

See the dealers and their ladies wearing turquoise, lace, and leather
See the narcos and the closet smokers puffin’ all together
From the teenies who smoke legal to the ones who've done some time
To the old man who smoked “reefer” back before it was a crime
And the grand old house that Ruth built is filled with the smoke and cries
Of fifty thousand screaming heads all stoned out of their minds.
And they play the national anthem and the crowd lets out a roar
As the spotlight hits The Kid and Pearl, ready for their smokin' war
At a table piled up high with grass, as high as a mountain peak
Just tops and buds of the rarest flowers, not one stem, branch or seed.

Maui Wowie, Panama Red and Acapulco Gold.
Kif from East Afghanistan and rare Alaskan Cold.
Sticks from Thailand, Ganja from the Islands, and Bangkok's Bloomin' Best.
And some of that wet imported shit that capsized off Key West.
Oaxacan tops and Kenya Bhang and Riviera Fleurs.
And that rare Manhatten Silver that grows down in the New York sewers.
And there's bubblin’ ice cold lemonade and sweet grapes by the bunches.
And there's Hershey’s bars, and Oreos, ‘case anybody gets the munchies.
And the Calistoga Kid, he sneers, and Pearley, she just grins.
And the drums roll low and the crowd yells “GO!” and the world’s first Smoke Off begins.

Kid flicks his magic fingers once and ZAP! that first joint’s rolled.
Pearl takes one drag with her mighty lungs and WOOSH! that roach is cold.
Then The Kid he rolls his Super Bomb that’d paralyze a moose.
And Pearley takes one super hit and SLURP! that bomb’ defused.
Then he rolls three in just ten seconds and she smokes 'em up in nine,
And everybody sits back and says, "This just might take some time."
See the blur of flyin’ fingers, see the red coal burnin’ bright
As the night turns into mornin’ and the mornin’ fades to night
And the autumn turns to summer and a whole damn year is gone
But the two still sit on that roach-filled stage, smokin' and rollin' on
With tremblin’ hands he rolls his jays with fingers blue and stiff
She coughs and stares with bloodshot gaze, and puffs through blistered lips.
And as she reaches out her hand for another stick of gold
The Kid he gasps, "Goddamn it, bitch, there's nothin' left to roll!"
"Nothin’ left to roll?", screams Pearl, "Is this some twisted joke?”
“I didn't come here to fuck around, man, I come here to SMOKE!"
And she reaches 'cross the table And grabs his bony sleeves
And she crumbles his body between her hands like dried and brittle leaves
Flickin' out his teeth and bones like useless stems and seeds
And then she rolls him in a Zig Zag and lights him like a roach.
And the fastest man with the fastest hands goes up in a puff of smoke.

In the laid-back California town of sunny San Raphael
Lives a girl named Pearly Sweetcake, you prob’ly know her well.
She’s been stoned twenty-one of her twenty-four years, and the story’s widely told.
How she still can smoke them faster than anyone can roll
While off in New York City on a street that has no name.
There's the hands of the Calistoga Kid in the Viper Hall of Fame
And underneath his fingers there's a little golden scroll
That says, Beware of Bein’ the Roller When There's Nothin’ Left to Roll.

FattyJJ

I liked that, good read!

At first I though it was going to be to the tune of The Devil Went Down to Georgia.

cm8

That was awesome.. I grew up on shell s. keep up the post

BradleyNIN

Fire on the mountain RUN BOY RUN!

ddoubleez

The Perfect High

There once was a boy named Gimme-Some-Roy... He was nothin' like me or you,
'cause laying back and getting high was all he cared to do.

As a kid, he sat in the cellar...sniffing airplane glue. And then he smoked banana peels, when that was the thing to do. He tried aspirin in Coca-Cola, he breathed helium on the sly, and his life became an endless search to find the perfect high.

But grass just made him wanna lay back and eat chocolate-chip pizza all night,
and the great things he wrote when he was stoned looked like shit in the morning light.
Speed made him wanna rap all day, reds laid him too far back, Cocaine-Rose was sweet to his nose, but the price nearly broke his back.

He tried PCP, he tried THC, but they never quite did the trick. Poppers nearly blew his heart, mushrooms made him sick. Acid made him see the light, but he couldn't remember it long. Hash was a little too weak, and smack was a lot too strong. Quaaludes made him stumble, booze just made him cry, Then he heard of a cat named Baba Fats who knew of the perfect high.

Now, Baba Fats was a hermit cat...lived high up in Nepal, High on a craggy mountain top, up a sheer and icy wall. "Well, hell!" says Roy, "I'm a healthy boy, and I'll crawl or climb or fly,
Till I find that guru who'll give me the clue as to what's the perfect high."

So out and off goes Gimme-Some-Roy, to the land that knows no time, Up a trail no man could conquer, to a cliff no man could climb. For fourteen years he climbed that cliff...back down again he'd slide . . .
He'd sit and cry, then climb some more, pursuing the perfect high.

Grinding his teeth, coughing blood, aching and shaking and weak, Starving and sore, bleeding and tore, he reaches the mountain peak. And his eyes blink red like a snow-blind wolf, and he snarls the snarl of a rat,
As there in repose, and wearing no clothes, sits the god-like Baba Fats.

"What's happenin', Fats?" says Roy with joy, "I've come to state my biz . . .
I hear you're hip to the perfect trip... Please tell me what it is. "For you can see," says Roy to he, "I'm about to die, So for my last ride, tell me, how can I achieve the perfect high?"

"Well, dog my cats!" says Baba Fats. "Another burned out soul, Who's lookin' for an alchemist to turn his trip to gold. It isn't in a dealer's stash, or on a druggist's shelf... Son, if you would find the perfect high, find it in yourself."

"Why, you jive mother-fucker!" says Roy, "I climbed through rain and sleet,
I froze three fingers off my hands, and four toes off my feet! I braved the lair of the polar bear, I've tasted the maggot's kiss. Now, you tell me the high is in myself? What kinda shit is this?

My ears, before they froze off," says Roy, "had heard all kindsa crap; But I didn't climb for fourteen years to hear your sophomore rap. And I didn't climb up here to hear that the high is on the natch, So you tell me where the real stuff is, or I'll kill your guru ass!"

"Okay...okay," says Baba Fats, "You're forcin' it outta me... There is a land beyond the sun that's known as Zabolee. A wretched land of stone and sand, where snakes and buzzards scream, And in this devil's garden blooms the mystic Tzutzu tree.

Now, once every ten years it blooms one flower, as white as the Key West sky,
And he who eats of the Tzutzu flower shall know the perfect high. For the rush comes on like a tidal wave...hits like the blazin' sun. And the high? It lasts forever, and the down don't never come.

But, Zabolee Land is ruled by a giant, who stands twelve cubits high, And with eyes of red in his hundred heads, he awaits the passer-by. And you must slay the red-eyed giant, and swim the river of slime, Where the mucous beasts await to feast on those who journey by. And if you slay the giant and beasts, and swim the slimy sea, There's a blood-drinking witch who sharpens her teeth as she guards the Tzutzu tree."

"Well, to hell with your witches and giants," says Roy, "To hell with the beasts of the sea--
Why, as long as the Tzutzu flower still blooms, hope still blooms for me."
And with tears of joy in his sun-blind eyes, he slips the guru a five, And crawls back down the mountainside, pursuing the perfect high.

"Well, that is that," says Baba Fats, sitting back down on his stone, Facing another thousand years of talking to God, alone. "Yes, Lord, it's always the same...old men or bright-eyed youth... It's always easier to sell 'em some shit than it is to tell them the truth."

Shel Silverstein