Best Stogie Poems
FOOTLES FOR THE BIRDS AND THE BEASTS -
Bad-ass old bear:
Grizzly
Grizzly
Dachshund making critical life choices:
Eenie
Weenie...
Cougar from Arizona:
Yuma
Puma
Cowardly Cock-a-Doodle-Doer:
Chicken
Chicken
Slave Driving Beaver:
Dam it
Damn it!
Aptly named female feathered friend:
Robin
Robin
Alaska poacher gets mauled by a:
Polar's
Molars
Overweight Terrier:
Porky
Yorkie
Scavenger Mores:
Vulture
Culture
After sex, bears often share a:
Yogi
Stogie
Neutered Tomcat:
Benign
Feline
Wolf in Sheep’s clothing:
Mutton
Glutton
Proportionally, male Dachshunds have:
Teenie
Weenies
(But size isn't everything)
.........................................
RANDOM AND RATHER REDICULOUS FOOTLES -
Overweight law enforcement official:
Whopper
Copper
Overweight Janitor:
Whopper
Mopper
Spaced-out church officer:
Freekin’
Deacon
Church officer forced to depend on Depends:
Leakin'
Deacon
Unhappy restaurant client:
Diner
Whiner
Cosa Nostra restaurant special:
Mobster
Lobster
Yep, you guessed it. A criminal Crustacean:
Lobster
Mobster
Why did she slap me? All I did was:
Toot her
Hooter
Careless Urologist:
Pecker
Wrecker
On The Prairie
Congregated on the prairie western clear with beasts
Cowboy chews tobacco, swirls black liquid, spits
Projectile clean, target hit, lizard quick
Long tongued creature stunned
No time to snatch a timid bug
So much hungry love undone
Reptile rolls over rounded rock pin ball like
Looks both ways before crossing into dark
Cowpoke silhouetted, floated on campfire
Smiles Clint Eastwood style
Slips a small stogie through cracked dry lips
Moves it from left to right
Lights it, inhales harsh life
Jagged teeth, yellow, tinted by time
Clinched while he thinks about old wars
A warrior down to the core
Grins at the beans bubbling up
Old iron skillet and the western sky
Gazes at the long lost stars through smoke
Shakes sand off hat and boots when done
Speaks not a single word
But with a sigh he rises and rides off
A man in his later years enjoys a cigar.
He holds a fat brown rolled stogie with his fingers to his lips.
He puckers at the end of the stimulating stump, pulling a large puff.
He lights his vice with a blow torch.
Blue, red, yellow flame jets out the end of a curved steel tube.
He is balding and grey with whiskers.
Puckering and squinting casually his skin reveals fine wrinkles.
A dark green frame with round clear lenses sets on a large triangular nose.
His clothes are plain:
a button collar shirt with tiny blue checks,
a dark blue puffed coat, a tan denim bib.
His hands are large with fingers like sausages.
He holds his cigar and torch like a gorilla enjoying fruit.
At times only a moment matters.
The best things in life are not always sophisticated.
Experience and simplicity allow senses to be the only luxury needed.
People relish their vices
after youth and excess have revealed what is common and uninteresting.
It is the process of feeling what is familiar and different about the moment
which drives people in later years to enjoy an awareness of their senses
rather than any perception driven by language.
She was a wily cigar chompin' gambler with the moniker of Poker Alice,
Renowned throughout the west for her skill in many a gamblin' palace!
Poker Alice had a good head for countin' and with her very cunnin' guile,
(Plus her beauty), she mesmerized her opponents, amassin' quite a pile!
Poker Alice worked in saloons across the west as a faro and poker dealer.
She worked in Creede, Colorado for Bob Ford, that notorious stealer!
Because of her pious rearin' as a girl, she refused to work on Sundays,
But she was back smokin' a two-dollar stogie and dealin' cards on Mondays!
She drifted to Deadwood, South Dakota, where her notoriety was well known,
And married a house painter named Tubbs who was a deft gambler on his own!
Later she established a brothel near Fort Mead Army Post with her ill-gotten gain.
The place was small and she needed funds to fix the 'house' on Pleasure Lane!
To expand and recruit 'soiled doves' from Kansas City she applied for a loan.
The banker scratched his skull sayin', "I dunno! That's a risk into the unknown!"
She convinced him notin' that The Grand Old Army had an encampment near,
And for the soldiers' bent for visitin' hog ranches, he had nothin' at all to fear!
Things didn't go well since she plumb forgot The Methodist Preachers' Convention,
Convened each and every year and she hadn't figured on that intervention!
Poker Alice's fame and notoriety followed her well beyond her wanin' years.
She died after a gall bladder operation with her 'house' payments in arrears!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
© All Rights Reserved
Placed No. 4 in Don Johnson's " Your Old Ballad Or Rhyme - Best Of All Time" Contest
July 2011
Don’t walk on the grass, no sleeping on the bench
Well if this don’t throw in that old monkey wrench
What was it bothering? Since no one else was here
Just old Hank and his stogie and his warm bottle of beer
Just fresh from the hall where he dined on that meal
Rice and gravy and a slice of what they called veal
But it’s free for the taking and pickings are slim
And to tell you the truth, it wasn’t bothering him
Well he looked left and right and set down for a rest
As he lit up a stogie and blew out a smoky breath
He sipped from the bottle and lay back his tired head
Then rolled up his jacket and then went to bed
Soon a uniformed officer was tapping with his stick
Said, don’t even think of pulling any of your tricks
He was hauled off to a site down off Third and Green
And thrown in the alley that cleanliness had never seen
The stench and noise kept him awake and alert
One never knew what to expect in this filth and dirt
Just as on cue, those hoodlums all arrived
As old Hank wondered to himself would he come out alive?
Just then a paddy wagon screeched to a halt real fast
As the hoodlums night didn’t have long to last
They also grabbed old Hank and threw him in the bus
Right next to an old con by the name of Handy Gus
A night in the slammer, fighting was their plea
As old Hank just shook his head and said “how can this be?”
Then just before breakfast, they set him free once again
As it’s back on the streets right where yesterday began
Was it his clothing or was it his beard? He really didn’t know
Whatever it was, they again ordered him out in the cold
Maybe it was his clothes, they were all ragged and torn
But if memory serves me correctly all roses do have thorns
He thought of the old days when Uncle Sam came to call
He joined to fight the japs although he was small
And this is his reward, boy ain’t life just grand
Go off to war and fight but now you’re just a bum of a man
Sexy Sardine:
Dishy
Fishy
Charming Swordfish
Darlin'
Marlin
Alaskan poacher gets mauled by a:
Polar's
Molars
After sex, bears often share a:
Yogi
Stogie
Snake Charmer:
Viper
Piper
Sheep Predator:
Mutton
Glutton
Ah! There is nothing, nothing that adds to a gentleman's persona,
Like that of fashionably sporting and puffing a five-dollar Corona!
With a cigar in his jowls, he can socialize with disdainful pretense!
Clad in his ten-dollar Goodwill suit, he exudes tawdry opulence!
What better way at the end of a sumptuous repast,
And after the snifters of brandy have been passed,
Than to light up an aromatic Presidente' with the fellows,
All puffing to keep the fire lit as a farrier does with his bellows!
The king on his throne and the bum in his shack enjoy equal pleasure,
Each puffing his favorite stogie, blissful beyond all measure!
I'm told that even some ladies enjoy a puff now and then.
I tip my fedora to them for they are braver than some men!
The aroma of my Panetella clings to everything in the house,
And that doesn't foster good relations with my loving spouse!
She admonishes me about that constantly as she stifles a choke,
And it aggravates her to see good money going up in smoke!
For decades I have enjoyed the pleasure of a fine cigar.
Never mind that doc says my lungs are filled with tar!
He's written an apt epitaph when my existence becomes moot:
"Here smolders this old galoot! He's puffed his final Cheroot!"
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
© All Rights Reserved
...and I want to start all my sentences with
the taste of his tongue.
I find him locked inside my rib cage
leaning softly against my heart
smoking a stogie and strumming bones,
where every thought of him is a losing
battle between good and evil that
I just don't truly want to win.
A garden of mist dripped wisteria
and criminal desire to cross all the
wrong borders to nymphet hysteria.
I'm afraid it might hurt a little,
this promise to make me a woman
again...
engrave his name on my spine
with a lovers knot of whispering pine
a seven year itch into ivy climb.
I want to know the sure feel of his lips
on mine...splashed on all the inner
walls of his surrender.
Domestic beer and cheap cigars
inflame my lyric flare,
spark my anxious urge
to create something readable,
splurge into visions of sugarplums,
flights of pure fancy, till I have a
poem distilled in my brain.
The struggle to articulate
is pure and simple pleasure,
making mountains out of molehills
and silk purses from sows' ears,
perched at my computer
with my dreams and foolish wishes.
So I'll smoke another stogie,
free a beer from the refrigerator,
write another silly verse to share
with who knows whom;
I'll keep shunning good nutrition
and be grateful to my muse
'til they lay me cold and lifeless in my tomb!
hot cocoa with a marshmallow and a straw stick, please dear.
surprised the bartender, he didn’t get many of this kind in here.
You’re a bovine, right? He asked the calf wearing the jaunty smile.
My mommy and daddy think so; they live on a ranch called six mile.
I think they might have met in this bar, the old timer said.
Did your mama dance her hooves off and wear flashy red?
calf was shocked, he did not know anything about their courting days.
I guess I could ask my daddy, he said. This sounds like a phase.,
Don’t quote me said the barkeep, I get a lot of things wrong.
But did your father smoke a stogie? And can he sing a song?
Not my daddy, the calf said, maybe some other guy.
His mother would have disagreed with a long poignant sigh.
I would rather see you smoke a banana,
than that stale old stogie from Havana.
It was the end of the day when McGee walked in
to his favorite neighborhood pub
Gave a last puff on a stogie
that he smoked right down to the stub
Then made his way up to the bar
Where he said with a troubling grin
Serve me a beer and put it right here
Before all the trouble begins
After the first, he had another
as his patients appeared to wear thin
And saying He wanted a beer
Before all the trouble begins
So this went on 'til the barman
produced McGee's bill, and that's when
McGee scratched his head, and then calmly said
"Now Here's where the trouble begins"
Ah, yes! A jock can dream!
As depicted in Apple’s, latest,
Pregnant, male, emoji.
I imagine an overweight male,
In a slinky nightgown, hairy legs.
Puffing circles,from his very favorite stogie!
4/22/2022
He’s somebody’s grandpa I bet, we all said.
He had wandered into our family reunion around nine.
Grandma rolled her eyes and set him in front of the TV.
He smelled like chew, his flannel shirt was a bit wrinkled.
He was unkempt but clean, a relative maybe?
No one knew, but we kept our opinions to ourselves.
He lit up a stogie and watched the news past our heads.
Grandma brought him a tray with bacon, eggs and two piece of toast.
As she turned to go he gave her a playful pat on her petootsie ootsie.
We young ones laughed; earning sharp looks from our parents.
We never did find out who the guy was, but figured he was an Iowan.
This was 1962, when children did not know the ways of grownups.
I have never forgotten the pat on grandma’s petootsie ootsie
Or the way the old dude’s face lit up when he looked at me and grinned.
I pegged him as Granddaddy’s replacement, but never saw him again.
Domestic beer and cheap cigars
inflame my lyric flare,
spark my anxious urge
to create something readable,
splurge into visions of sugarplums,
flights of pure fancy, till I have a
poem distilled in my brain.
The struggle to articulate is
pure and simple pleasure,
making mountains out of molehills,
silk purses from sows' ears,
perched at my computer
with my dreams and foolish wishes.
So I'll smoke another stogie,
free a beer from the refrigerator,
write another silly verse to share
with God knows whom;
I'll keep shunning good nutrition
and be grateful to my muse
'til they lay me cold and lifeless in my tomb!