Best Matchstick Poems
Matchstick Bikes
To tinkers and toilers
I salute,
From mending boilers
to weaving jute,
Man and boy
for generations,
I will unemploy
your occupations.
To brewers in sheds
I sink a few beers
To wet the heads
of our engineers,
From flat cloth caps
to matchstick men,
I will see the collapse
of pushers of pens.
To bakers, tailors
I wish you well,
To the soldiers and sailors
who fought and fell,
From doctors, nurses
to hobnail boots,
I will give your purses
to thieves in suits.
To the grieving docks
I drink a toast,
To tackle and blocks
and shipyard ghosts,
From warehouses, workshops
to fishing trawls,
I will flick my mop
in empty halls.
To union dues
I shake your hand,
To cleaning loos
and farming land,
From railway gauges
to industry,
I will turn the pages
of history.
To factory lines
I raise my glass,
'Neath abandoned mines
of times now past,
From overtime
to austerity,
I will frame the grime
for posterity.
To the silent mills
I tip my hat,
To what ever ills
and this and that,
From a steelworks spew
to a builders hole,
I will stand in a queue
to draw my dole.
To finance, the city
I bow in awe,
To show no pity,
to flout the law,
From sellers, buyers
to pickets and strikes
I will slash the tyres
of your matchstick bikes.
© RJVHorton2016
A head full of hair
Walking on a weak foundation
The chic new style fills the aisles
And sweeps entire generations
But we live in a time where all women pine
For the look of a matchstick girl!
Strange as I see them
My smile froze on my lips
I felt sorry for limbs looking like sticks
For society they burnt themselves down
Contemplating life, my mind raced
I could never be a matchstick
The box would never take me
Nor did I ever want to fit!
I stood up, no one noticed me
I did not burn and no one cared
Out I walked into the open
I turned back to take a look
The glass bore a fired reflection
The price to burn inside their skin
Deep down I knew all matches
Fade away to almost nothing
I knew this was never my calling
To be that fire that burns up a stick!
Smoke me out and cancer
I remember when I was your stick thin, pretty grin, dimple in the chin
--nice dancer
And your navel, the bucket of my quench,
catches the spins of your call and my answer
And when your hand grabs elbows
and I laugh and spin at the ribboning of my temples
I know this is the stop
You see, I boom for you and you just pop
So I snap back turn and swing
You're the pendulum of my happening
You're my lay down, stay down call and no answer
So I ricochet, piqué, split and go faster
but I find you, the keeper of my feet
The loud raping the meek
Sudden master
Do you remember me?
Stick thin. Life's grim. What's a dancer?
Matchstick Girl.
Matchstick Girl in ragged clothes,
lace up shoes and purple toes.
'Come buy your matchsticks from me sir,
your wife all fancy in her fur'.
Every night on London's streets
there were matchstick girls
with clip clop feet.
Men with sticks and big top hats,
cobbled streets with hungry cats.
Gaslights dimming out the night,
pavement shadows causing fright.
The matchstick girl to a window ledge,
strikes a match from behind a hedge.
Yuletide greetings she does see,
candles lit on a Christmas tree.
Girls with velvet ribbons and bows,
fancy frocks and socks on toes.
A mantlepiece with stockings hung,
gathered folk and a carol sung.
Satsumas, figs and dry cured ham,
chestnuts roast in a metal pan.
Then the matchstick girl with her stick of light
returns again to the dark cold night.
'Come buy your matchsticks from me please'
as she starts to shake and she starts to freeze.
That night her matchsticks all ran out,
she could not light a match to shout.
Snow had poured down snow on snow,
little matchstick girl nowhere to go,
she lay down on the snow instead,
with angel wings to rest her head.
The snowflakes carried her soul away
to a place called Heaven far away..
1
Rain for weeks
bruised October.
The burden of bitter
air spewed from the
drain of my swollen yard.
Already the birds had turned
to pirates.
I saw the night let
a blind rag wing dive
from a tree into the rapids
of a sidewalk,
rolling, crumbling like a
mad leaf.
2
The afternoon had cleared
and isolated my yard in
cold light.
Wet death had made no
ceremony for the rigid
squirrel.
Murky death had stolen
its eyes.
Hard death had robbed
the squirrel. I rolled
the item in newspaper.
Thoughtless death into
the trash bag
with Styrofoam and Reynolds Wrap.
3
Living wavered
on a matchstick.
On an evening some
flickering things were
extinguished.
match stick
giving a dancing shape to
the gloomy legs
Matchstick
One tree
Yields one million
One burns one million
Trees
Date: 06/05/2019
*Modern Cinquain