![](\"https:\/\/stickpersonpoetry.com\/images\/042013\/0421.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
0421
\nIt’s 4:20 somewhere<\/p>\n
The Smoke Off<\/strong> In the laid back California town of sunny San Rafael So a note gets sent to San Rafael, “For the Championship of the World See the dealers and their ladies wearing turquoise, lace, and leather Maui Wowie, Panama Red and Acapulco Gold. Kid flicks his magic fingers once and ZAP! that first joint\u2019s rolled. In the laid back California town of sunny San Rafael
\nBy Shel Silverstein<\/p>\n
\nLived a girl named Pearly Sweetcake, you prob\u2019ly knew her well.
\nShe\u2019d been stoned fifteen of her eighteen years and the story was widely told
\nThat she could smoke ’em faster than anyone could roll.
\nHer legend finally reached New York, that Grove Street walk up flat
\nWhere dwelt The Calistoga Kid, a beatnik from the past
\nWith long browned lightnin\u2019 fingers he takes a cultured toke
\nAnd says, “Hell, I can roll em faster, Jim, than any chick can smoke!”<\/p>\n
\nThe Kid demands a smoke off!” “Well, bring him on!” says Pearl,
\n“I’ll grind his fingers off his hands, he’ll roll until he drops!”
\nSays Calistog, “I’ll smoke that twist till she blows up and pops!”
\nSo they rent out Yankee Stadium and the word is quickly spread
\n“Come one, come all, who walk or crawl, price Just two lids a head
\nAnd from every town and hamlet, over land and sea they speed
\nThe world’s greatest dopers, with the Worlds greatest weed
\nHashishers from Morocco, hemp smokers from Peru
\nAnd the Shamnicks from Bagun who puff the deadly Pugaroo
\nAnd those who call it Light of Life and those that call it boo.<\/p>\n
\nSee the narcos and the closet smokers puffin\u2019 all together
\nFrom the teenies who smoke legal to the ones who’ve done some time
\nTo the old man who smoked “reefer” back before it was a crime
\nAnd the grand old house that Ruth built is filled with the smoke and cries
\nOf fifty thousand screaming heads all stoned out of their minds.
\nAnd they play the national anthem and the crowd lets out a roar
\nAs the spotlight hits The Kid and Pearl, ready for their smokin’ war
\nAt a table piled up high with grass, as high as a mountain peak
\nJust tops and buds of the rarest flowers, not one stem, branch or seed.<\/p>\n
\nKif from East Afghanistan and rare Alaskan Cold.
\nSticks from Thailand, Ganja from the Islands, and Bangkok’s Bloomin’ Best.
\nAnd some of that wet imported shit that capsized off Key West.
\nOaxacan tops and Kenya Bhang and Riviera Fleurs.
\nAnd that rare Manhatten Silver that grows down in the New York sewers.
\nAnd there’s bubblin\u2019 ice cold lemonade and sweet grapes by the bunches.
\nAnd there’s Hershey\u2019s bars, and Oreos, case anybody gets the munchies.
\nAnd the Calistoga Kid, he sneers, and Pearly, she just grins.
\nAnd the drums roll low and the crowd yells “GO!” and the world\u2019s first Smoke Off begins.<\/p>\n
\nPearl takes one drag with her mighty lungs and WOOSH! that roach is cold.
\nThen The Kid he rolls his Super Bomb that\u2019d paralyze a moose.
\nAnd Pearley takes one super hit and SLURP! that bomb\u2019 defused.
\nThen he rolls three in just ten seconds and she smokes ’em up in nine,
\nAnd everybody sits back and says, “This just might take some time.”
\nSee the blur of flyin\u2019 fingers, see the red coal burnin\u2019 bright
\nAs the night turns into mornin\u2019 and the mornin\u2019 fades to night
\nAnd the autumn turns to summer and a whole damn year is gone
\nBut the two still sit on that roach filled stage, smokin’ and rollin’ on
\nWith tremblin\u2019 hands he rolls his jays with fingers blue and stiff
\nShe coughs and stares with bloodshot gaze, and puffs through blistered lips.
\nAnd as she reaches out her hand for another stick of gold
\nThe Kid he gasps, “Goddamn it, bitch, there’s nothin’ left to roll!”
\n“Nothin\u2019 left to roll?”, screams Pearl, “Is this some twisted joke?”
\n“I didn’t come here to fuck around, man, I come here to SMOKE!”
\nAnd she reaches ‘cross the table And grabs his bony sleeves
\nAnd she crumbles his body between her hands like dried and brittle leaves
\nFlickin’ out his teeth and bones like useless stems and seeds
\nAnd then she rolls him in a Zig Zag and lights him like a roach.
\nAnd the fastest man with the fastest hands goes up in a puff of smoke.<\/p>\n
\nLives a girl named Pearly Sweetcake, you prob\u2019ly know her well.
\nShe\u2019s been stoned twenty one of her twenty four years, and the story\u2019s widely told.
\nHow she still can smoke them faster than anyone can roll
\nWhile off in New York City on a street that has no name.
\nThere’s the hands of the Calistoga Kid in the Viper Hall of Fame
\nAnd underneath his fingers there’s a little golden scroll
\nThat says, Beware of Bein\u2019 the Roller When There’s Nothin\u2019 Left to Roll.<\/p>\n