Best Matchsticks Poems
When it left the Arctic it was as a wild angry wind
that stormed its way across the ice bound Arctic ocean.
Blowing the snow clad icebergs and whipping up the ocean.
As it crossed Alaska and into Canada it had gentled
now it played games with leaves and softly kissed flowers.
Gaily it soared over the Rockies and tugged goats beards
causing them to shake their heads and stamp their feet.
In Playful mood it swept on hugging the coast awhile
then veering inland, it travels the plains and grows in strength
turning into a raging tornado causing havoc as it passes.
Moving ever southward it basks in now warm sunshine
and skips over the gulf of Mexico filling yachts sails.
Deep down in South America it turns into a wild fury that
uproots trees snapping them in half like matchsticks,
Then onward once more dancing past the Falkland islands.
Its destiny is now in sight and with triumphant roar
it rushes on over the Antarctic ocean and slides up
the icy barrier then screams its way across the tundra
yet slowly it loses its power and as it reaches the incline
this moody wind fades away until with final breath it dies.
Where forests stretched for miles, and Spirit Lake
lay at its foot, there stood a rebel peak.
One day the earth beneath began to quake.
What havoc Mother Nature was to wreak!
The tremors kept occurring till the day
two craters which had formed began to merge,
erupting ash. Wise folks left right away,
for that volcano soon would surely surge!
Some met their death that eerie Sunday morn
of May eighteenth. The deer began to flee.
Then from the mount, a burst of cloud was born -
a mushroom cloud which bellowed boisterously.
It grumbled and it rumbled, rocketing
for fourteen miles to sky its ice and ash.
Land slid. An avalanche was covering
all things within the path of its mad dash!
By 10:15, a wall of water rushed
down to the river, tearing up the trees
along with boulders as the ash still gushed.
Destruction had been wrought with greatest ease.
The news said Mount St. Helen’s lost her head,
and trees, like matchsticks, lay upon the ground.
Amazingly, despite such loss and dread,
there is new growth of beauty all around!
Written Aug. 13, 2014 for Wordscapes Contest of John Hamilton
The detritus of a household of smokers was a joy to the young child, stifled in a family he believed he had outgrown. Matchsticks, by the score, he used to build magical castles with towers to climb or Spanish Galleons to sail away to places far. A live match found was a rare treasure, a pregnant opportunity to destroy--a secret power. The best were the small cardboard matchboxes with their slide-out tray, which he arranged like a chest of a hundred tiny drawers. Each drawer contained a precious item, a pebble, a penny, a bloodstained band-aid, a tooth, four-leafed clover, a tear-stained note, a lock of hair. . .
weaving
a smaller web
spider in a box
Like A Child Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Regina McIntosh
Date wrote: 4th July 2022
In her resting place — she’d toy
with shadows, matchsticks
and glow in the dark paint.
Out and about — she’d fly
through the night, wax her teeth
and loudly sip her straw.
A mordacious-red stain upon her tongue.
1/29/2018
Brian Strand’s Premiere Contest 125
Sevenling Poem
Part 3
9th Delerium: Emptyness
Water wheels in wastelands... turning,
drowning relics in the slum
Rumpled rags of fashioned burlap... burning,
lit by bandits blind and dumb
Pastured prisons, ponies bridled ... yearning,
forest fairies under thumb
Sounds inside of cauldrons coughing... churning,
blaring bugles, tattooed drum
10th Delirium: Alienation
Rain unravelling, wistfully weeping... falling,
treacle trickling, fickle sky
Mushrooms sprinkled, visions sprouting... sprawling,
seagulls drowning, dolphins die
Rabble gasping, spirits broken... crawling,
lonely lonesome swallows cry
Babbling brooks and breakers ebbing... bawling
puppies paddle, puppets sigh
People passing ripple past me... calling,
rainbow colours, collars high
Chaos seething, lepers looting... stalling,
stealing stallions on the sly
Pencils pausing, scholars scrambling... scrawling,
scratching scribbles, asking why
11th Delirium: Jetsam
Silver sails sway pallid pirates... prowling,
Jolly Rogers, wind and sound
Parrots perching, tattered feathers... fouling,
tethered talons, tied and bound
Shipwrecked foghorns, trumpets stranded... howling,
spiral springs of time unwound
Magic moonlight, shimmers shaking... scowling,
burnt out matchsticks washed aground
Prairie wolfs, coyotes calling... yowling,
witching hours, midnight hounds
Tightrope walkers, grizzlies grunting... growling,
seeking islands, lost and found
12th Delirium: Relief
Slumber shattered, vapours captive... haunting,
chained in mirrors, breaking free
Scarlet skylines, daylight dawning... daunting,
rivers rushing to the sea
Silence softens, sandmen whisper... wanting,
piercing rafters, turning keys
Shadows shudder, notions fluster... flaunting,
moonbeam bullets meant for me
Mind in migraine, meadows trembling... taunting,
sparrows speak in harmony
REAWAKENING
Pitter patter, teardrops paling... pearling,
salting scarves in secret drawers
Mist amongst us, smoke rings rising... curling,
climbing from the ocean floors
See-saw circles, senses swerving... swirling,
swept away with silver oars
Courtyard jesters, sceptres twisting... twirling,
push the past to foreign shores
Passing pangs of passions heaving... hurling,
burning bridges, closing doors
Roses wither, icons waning... whirling,
time decays and time restores
End
School bus driver
Releases the squish of her air brakes
With a lurch from knees and chest
Clunks the bus into Park
Lowers her red head into the matchsticks of her dry hands
Rolls the meatballs of her eyes between her thumbs
And quietly says Help me God reaching for her cigarettes.
Out of habit she takes one last glance
Into her rearview mirror
Seeing the blond hair of a kid
Sitting in what should be the empty back.
The driver tears down the aisle to her own childhood
Kindergartner sitting with her precious hands
Balanced like tea cups on her knees
Her pretty dress that her mother picked
Is the color of bees teasing flowers
Her blue eyes dazzling
She has a worried smile drawn across her face
Squiggled there by dad in the morning.
She doesn’t speak a word
The driver takes her by the hand
And walks her to the garage to make The Call.
There’s been a terrible mistake
The driver’s boss says over the phone
To mom then dad both at work.
In a storm the lighthouse beacon
beckons ship in peril to come closer.
There is no where else to go.
A shining light offers refuge
But fails to deliver, as the light
warns of danger lurking nearby.
Sailors see the light and head for it,
Hoping to navigate from there as a waypoint
But in the storm's turmoil and confusion
The light lures the seafarers closer to danger,
But by then its too late to veer away, too close to avoid
the peril the lighthouse warns of.
Safe within the lighthouse keeper watches in horror
Seeing the boat floundering, getting closer and closer
Hoping against hope that the ship will steer away,
Failing to understand why the ship has headed his way.
But the ship keeps on coming
In desperate plight, when any light offers hope,
to escape the relentless ravages of the storm.
The ship plows on and on, closer and closer,
Then flounders on the rocks at the feet of the lighthouse.
Smashing into matchsticks, the crew tossed overboard
Like rag dolls, limp; all hands aboard lost.
The lighthouse beacons beckons,
luring crew and ships to stray too close in desperation.
Watching it spin on an axis of shame
Collecting my thoughts in the cool summer rain
Whispering now cause I just can't complain
Well, it's the least I can do
Silvertone speakers that crackle with age
Finding the book but misplacing the page
Don't question why it is all of the rage
Merely just one point of view
Washing the sheets as the pillowcase cries
Shouting tomorrow, an early surprise
Gathering matchsticks, a sweet compromise
Turning my face to the wind
Cutting a rug even though I can't dance
Betting on four, might as well take a chance
Two could be better when thinking romance
Maybe I'll do it again
This might seem crazy, the phrases I write
Nothing too loose but some lines very tight
Not making sense in this poem tonight
All of the verses above
Here is the reason I wrote this today
Insane concoctions now put on display
Just blame my heart it has something to say
I think I have fallen in love
We are all born with a match box inside our body
We need oxygen and a candle to light it to accomplice
The oxygen has to come from a lover’s breathe.
Candle can be anything- a melody, a word, a caress.
Anything that pulls trigger and sets off a matchstick
Every person has to discover who will pull the trigger?
It is that very explosive flare that feed our souls.
What happens if there is nothing to trigger explosion?.
Our match boxes become damp unabling us to live.
Then we will never be able to light any of matchsticks.
But there are ways and ways to try damp match box
Light matches one at a time to see the path we forgot.
Desires, achievements and various honors we earn
Are like matchsticks leading us the next stage on
By lighting our path to settle down in corporate life
Here’s the crux; after combustion they lose value.
No one keeps used matchsticks, but there’s a way
Hey, hey, if the flame goes off, light another one.
There’re safety matches, friction and noiseless one
Needing suitable surface or specially prepared surface.
Well, an unstruck match won’t show up in pitch dark
Unless lighted up with external source with a surface.
=======================================
… scattered jazz,
haunted gnarls of
octupi-night staggering
between semen-splinters of stars
pain-fornicating in
my collective gutter, my disheveled
cells oozing your
black and
softer gold
burning silence
in a heathen writhe between my ears
dancing on the cusp: my dead-zone ecstasy
defiling
corrupting and
seduction-raping the
industry of numbness,
toilet-scream from
between legs: slave of avoidance
whore of denial
death in a vacuum
naught ever happening
until it’s time to drain
blood from the radiator
in the cross-hairs of crucifiction,
copulation of seven-inched nails
click of steel, snap of heels,
tails,
tongues flickering to embrace
the gutters of my cells
reaching for unopened chapters
strewn through sanctified pain,
and I waiting
for your drive through
the brothel of my mind,
forsaken
lashed to the altar,
my anguish screeching
our prayers,
your black, softer
gold annihilated to smoke
ravishing the reek spiraling up
from my nostrils,
your unspeaking
crawl through catacombs
whispering mouldering truths
under my fingernails scraping remembrances
from your hair
caressing cathredrals rent into
matchsticks to prop heaven
apart,
shriven thighs
toxic-anointed sighs,
poison of my ache for
the healing venom
of your eyes,
soothing darts of darkness bathing dead-zone paramids
with the musky
perfume of sorrow and
floundering celebration
dug from primordial pits
by scrabbling fingertips
clutching for a remnant of your heart
wrapped in wonder
around my pulse staggering, ragged edge of jazz
scraping across windowpanes
in a shriek freezing the soul of god
and dried ice
begging to plunge into embers of your blood
lost in my veins
running from room to room
in my house, our house,
teddy bear, knothole yawns and
oven with gaping jaws,
medicine cabinet of numbness,
sobbing pills
ceiling lowered to a stoop,
tatters
patterns
snow-crystals following a trail
through our window into traffic jams of children
cascading out of the chapel – my gutter-cell
longing to be unlocked
by the sound of your voice…
… ressurection in the
octupi-night…
Someone lit a fire,
Knowing someone like me would
Find it, feel it… why?
Odd to see flames here,
Strange… it’s something wilder than
Matchsticks or candles.
Don’t eat cake, they said; it goes to your hips
That’d be sexy, I think and lick the cream on my lips
Don’t eat cake, they said; it goes to your thigh
A little cushion on those matchsticks I can’t deny
I ate seconds with cream so yummy
It sat layered on my once flat tummy
Making it protrude in bulk out of my jeans
Now I know what a muffin top means
As crunches and planks make me ache
Oh! I regret those pieces of cake
Written on :08/02/2016
Contest:'Regretting Cake' by Julia Ward
On coining an acronym for the neologism 'occult microaggresion'
'OM' is right,
But might get the Buddhists backs up....
OMA, WTAF? What about OMA?
Its German for granny, but I've no objection to teutonic geriatrics,
Unless they take hat tricks;
They can be surprisingly elastic -
Vorsprung durch plastic!
What's that you say, too bombastic?
I'll curtail the doggerel,
With a couple of matchsticks,
That used to work on the beatniks,
Although, Ginsberg could be slippery
When incensed by casual vivipiary,
'I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by....
Sticklebricks' (sic).
It's such a minefield, this identity real politik;
As Trotsky said to Stalin:
'Josef Besarionis Jughashvili,
the proletariat can be real pricks',
And, as the Stranglers pointed out,
One of them finished him off with an ice pick!
But, as Galileo observed,
Maybe that's just the fate in store for bigoted denizens
Of this rotund and heliocentric
Planet; 'eppur si muove' he muttered,
And, although a trifle bucolic,
It seems a fitting epitaph for the Pisan melanancholic.
I apologise for this diatribe didactic,
The current pandemic has rendered me
in urgent need of a linguistic immunoelectrophoretic
The Faller
He stands at the edge of a tall mountain looking down the sheer drop.
Seconds pass.
The man jumps!
Nothing stops his fall.
Rocks smash his frail limbs like matchsticks.
End over end till he finally hits the valley floor 2,800ft below,
his body a bloody broken mass.
Why did he jump?
Suicide?
No.
Because he enjoys it.
He's the faller.
This jump is his 318th off this mountain.
Broken limbs, pulped body, severed head, fatal injuries and death
are an occupational hazard.
It's ok.
The destructive injuries vanish after 30 minutes and
the faller is as fit as a butcher’s dog
and mad as a psychopath to jump again.
Witness a freak: the faller.
We can’t go out so what to do?
How do we spend our time?
Imagination, racing thoughts
My brain on overtime.
There’s gardening, painting, DIY
Non urgent jobs to do,
They’re boring and predictable,
I need stimulus, tried and true.
That lazy dog could do a bit,
He snores his life away
Maybe I could combine some things
And make him earn his pay.
The veg patch is so overgrown,
With weeds and grass and such,
It needs a plough to turn it all,
To dig is far too much.
I contemplate the problem,
Ideas are coming fast,
My engineering side comes forth
To help me in this task.
A rotary lawnmower
With motor burnt right out,
I’ll take off all the spinning bits
And modify throughout.
A blade made from a shovel,
That I found lying around,
I built a wooden structure
And fixed it facing down.
A harness formed by ropes,
Tied to doggies walking brace
Then fixed back to the plough
Would keep the mutt in place.
I could steer it by the handles
While the dog was harnessed in
Then turn the garden over,
Job done, that’s it, we’re in.
I put the dog’s brace on him
And he thought his luck was in.
It must be walkies he seemed to say
As he looked at me and grinned.
I led him to my work of art,
And he sniffed at it a bit,
Then he looked at me and shook his head,
Raised a leg and peed on it.
I tied the ropes to his dog brace
And I told him what to do,
But he sat down in front of it,
His labour he withdrew.
I cut a long and whippy stick,
And urged him to get on,
And when I smacked him on the back,
I thought my end had come.
He shot off like racing hound,
Yelping all the way,
The plough was going sideways,
Gouging on its way.
He headed for the rose bushes,
The wife’s most treasured bit,
Then smashed them down to matchsticks
In a horrendous, swathing hit.
I was yelling, he was yelping,
The noise was quite insane,
As he cut a huge wide furrow
In our lush lawn’s green terrain.
The plough got stuck fast suddenly,
The dog wrenched off his feet
And he landed, winded on the ground
Like a hundred yards athlete.
I dismantled the plough
And scattered the bits,
No more projects from my thinking cap,
As I surveyed the garden wreckage
Of my lockdown’s worst mishap.