When Uncle Einar smokes his big cigar
His pink cheeks glow, his blue eyes glaze,
An expensive aromatic haze
Hallows the shining of his cranium;
His nose smolders like a red geranium.
His eyes roll heavenward where cherubim
Gambol the dove-gray smoke that pours from him,
And with a sound like forcing the Pearly Gates
He opens his golden mouth and pontificates
To all his dim kinfolk less fortunate
Than he with stocks and bonds and real estate.
They know they're in the presence of a star
When Uncle Einar smokes his big cigar.

When Uncle Einar drives his Cadillac car
He rolls the window down so his cigar
Can have some elbow room and freshen up
For miles and miles around the drab landscape
That heretofore has had to be content
With raw fresh air wholly lacking the scent
Of Havana tobacco that smells like yellow roses
As it fumes beneath Uncle Einar's red proboscis.
He rolls along at eighty miles an hour,
His tape deck playing Sinatra at full power,
Unless Aunt Wilma has accompanied
Her burnished husband for a Sunday ride;
For she insists on hymn tunes cranked up loud
To remind them both they owe it all to God.
You know you've seen the streaking of a star
When Uncle Einar drives his Cadillac car.

When Uncle Einar lets his intellect soar
His groundling kinfolk sit around and stare
As he sucks upon his velvety cigar
And expatiates upon his Cadillac car.
Such sterling precepts from his wisdom pour
That every bromide glows like cinnabar
As he explains the profits of peace and war,
The economics of nations near and far,
And how to gain the peso, drachma, kroner, yen, dinar,
By knowing who you know and being what you are.
Yet livid thunderstorms around him roar
When he contemplates the multitudinous poor
Who seem to lack the smallest instinct for
Keeping the ravenous wolf outside their door.
But lest they spoil the pleasure of this hour
Uncle Einar thrusts such thoughts afar
And pours a cognac from a Baccarat jar.
The twinkling brightness of a double star:
That's Uncle Einar and his vast cigar.

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All poems and essays linked here are copyright © by Fred Chappell and are not available for distribution other than on this Web site without the express permission of Fred Chappell.