Song Description

A tribute to a much-loved friend whose emblematic accessory was a lit cigarette.

Lyrics

Arabesques pirouettes flourishes delicate grace notes
Your cigarette draws in air and sets afloat in silent smoke

Contrails trying to write on sky but they're flying much too high
Words fragmented and broke into silent smoke

Curlicues grayish-blue you on the rail at the fantail
exhale with every piston stroke your silent smoke

Language lost smothered and choked couldn't make the cross
from seas so remote still you sent up your silent smoke

Final note no one wrote not one word no one heard but me
See, I've learned to read your silent smoke
(Want to know what it said?)

It said ahhhhhhhhhhhhh