Thanks for the drift of smoke
A barbecue in the woods
Meat, red meat alive on the flames
So easily I turn to anger
Was it ever so with a woman
My girl says I don't criticise
But do I praise her enough
Boy could I take a cigarette
Tread out across the boardwalk decking
Take a steak with cold beer
And garnished tossed salad
So easy it is to drink
Was it ever so with vocation
Not hard to be self critical
But do I praise the self
With such self-sufficiency
Strips across the sky
Jet streams over the Atlantic
Smell of smoke fills the air
Efforts of a local woodland cutter
We could all make a case
Each of us is a strategist at heart
But tonight just guests in some hotel
Just lovers of natures night-time beauty
He moves away with his cheroot
So as not to offend; times changed
Thirty years ago, in Huddersfield
Or anywhere else in the western world
Cigarette ash trays and steel match strikers
Built into Draughtsmen's drawing boards
Engineers, the meekest of all the species
Most often chose not to decide
