Best Zippo Poems
War is such an awful thing,
insanity can sometimes bring,
like my cousin the zippo man,
who burnt the huts the squealing and,
came home and shot himself...
poor John was damned...by Vietnam.
sad and true and tears the heart,
war is deadly, the aching part,
they go away, do not return,
just leave living heartache burns,
no delight...Don Johnson
No it's not anything you may be thinking of
it's in fact a very unknown thing because
you see I have a friend Nick
and he felt a little sick
and he grew tired of organized crime
so I tried to break him out of his mind
to set him on a lighter course
although it took alot of force
he got out of his old ways
he still went back to those days
Nick Never Craze (yes, that is his real name)
Held his old ways (everything stayed the same)
so I wrote this for him
Never back down he said
I can't be normal again
Can you see me, Red?
Killing me inside again
Crazy how it feels
Right and wrong it steels
Always searching for something more
Zippo lighters and kicking down doors
Easy times they where indeed
but this is how it feels to me
Mumbo gumbo's
blind faith
deepening cynicism
in metaphorical
meaninglessness
of judicious social
twaddle's protocol,
they ask, “have you
found Jesus yet??”
'I hadn't a figgy scooby doo
he was lost...'
nothing happens
for a reason
aside from the seasons - -
children starving,
wars in the name
of ungodly religions,
poverty
exponentially rising,
mother earth is crying
middle class is dying,
whilst dogmatism
& the nefarious
masses thrive
there are virtually &
literally nor otherwise,
zero, zippo, nada, concrete
reasons why_
'hear no evil',
mere riddling
rhymes make naught
a minuscule bit
of sense
I have a personlized Zippe lighter- and it is quite unique
Has cyanide capsules attached
For those dummies that so seek
to die in pain, to grasp for air
And are in a hurry too...
They say when you take cyanide
you turn a very blue
I guess we should sell guns to children
Free with a candy bar...
That'll show the world
Just how stupid we still are...
And each kindergarten lunch box,
Come packaged with some gin
We don't seem to have much common sense
And that really is a sin...
As for me, I'll go on driving
drunk with blindfold pulled down
I want so much to fit in
to be another clown
Oh, yes, let's not forget
Alligators in our pools
Just another indication
Just how much we are fools!
for Shar
Leaning On a Stone
I was afraid of gaining weight, so I kept on puffing my cigarettes. Filling my lungs, holding that drag as long as I could. I liked that feeling deep in my chest. When I breathed out through my nose, I looked like a smokey dragon. The long silver hair that framed my face, added to the overall effect.
I wasn’t much for them warning signs on the pack. It’s a free country, ain’t it? So I kept my cigarettes in a silver plated case. Kinda looked good with my sterling Zippo. You wouldn’t often see me without a Matinee cigarette hanging from my lip or between my thumb and forefinger.
I loved me them Matinee Large Regulars. When I got a cold I’d sometimes smoke those Mentholated Cools. They kinda soothed my throat. If the cash was rolling in I’d treat myself to a good cigar. I tried a pipe for a while but it was too much of a ritual for this guy. My pops had that vibe in spades. He looked good with his pipe and fedora.
When I started losing a bunch of weight I was a bit concerned. I thought it couldn’t be the cigarettes, I had cut down to two packs a day. Ya, I did have that persistent cough,
even the mentholated Cools didn’t seem to help.
Now it seems the smoke goes straight through me. Taking a drag is a drag. I look like the skull on the pack now. My silver hair is long gone. This dragon ain’t so fierce anymore. But, if you need a skeleton for your next party, I’m your guy. I look cool leaning against a Tomb Stone. Remember though, I’m partial to Matinee Large Regular.
"We the unwilling
Led by the unqualified
To kill the unfortunate
Die for the ungrateful"
A motto of the troops
Who served in Vietnam
And wrote it on the back
Of a chrome Zippo lighter.
© Paul Warren Poetry
I’m tired,.. shot, ..got nothing’,.. zippo,
Feel like I’m dragging a big ole hippo.
I want to do all kinds of things,
But I’ve just got no springs.
Ain’t it terribly awful … to feel like that?
Feel like spit... that’s just been spat.
But I’m sure there will be many better days to come,
When I’ll feel like the cake instead of a crumb.
Hope dictates …the tide will turn,
I’ll be the bird, … not the worm.
Wisdom dictates I’m bound to learn,
Feel the faith baby!… Stay firm!
Seeing the name on a gravestone grey
Wishing you had more positive things to say
The wind throws you around like a prized fighter
Rambling off quotes from your favourite writer
Always a cliffhanger, a wanting of something more
Getting caught in the deafening downpour
I remember your favourite poem
Twas an Irish blessing for your home
Seeing your name in lights
Embracing you on one of the coldest nights
You were so beautiful - a gem to compare
Eyes of blue and your sandy hair
I wanted to be an artist when I was a teen
I wanted to be a director - you'd steal every scene
I loved you with my whole heart
No need for auditions - you know you got the part
Seeing your name on a gravestone grey
Takes me back to my favourite day
Wishing I could hold you one more time
Always a Poet - I chose for my life to rhyme
Your beauty captured by camera flash
Always saving up for a coffee - having just the right amount of cash
Drinking my tea and seeing the world through the eye of a writer
Listening to your favourite chorus - waving your Zippo lighter
You make my world more blue and grey
I love you very much is what I wish I could say
One last time
The Last Smoke
by Edmund Siejka
I miss cigarettes
Gave them up forty years ago
Holding one in my hand
Wine glass nearby
Made me look sophisticated
Like someone
Who knew the world.
The best cigarette was after dinner
Full stomach
Chair pushed back
Drinking coffee
No one saying much
Smoke billowing
Toward the ceiling
Vanishing in thin air.
Then the cancer warnings came
The price of cigarettes skyrocketed
The wife complained
Cigarettes stunk up the house
And I had to admit
Those used butts left in the ashtray
Really did smell up the living room.
I buried the old Zippo lighter in the dresser drawer
Somewhere between the socks and my favorite T-shirts
And gave up on a reliable friend.
Maybe one day I’ll light up again
When it’s my last day
Weepy relatives outside my room
It’s then I’ll have my last cigarette
Staring out the window
Thinking not all of my life was bad
And in fact, some of it was quite funny.
Putting out the last butt
I’ll wait
Satisfied,
Even content,
Knowing I had my last smoke.
[Youtube clip attached as the source of my ‘copper through your
letter box line... and because I just love the song!]
Don’t slap a copper with a kipper
Don’t catch your todger in your zipper
Don’t put the peas on if you cannot watch the pot
And if your wife should ask don’t say the weather girl is hot
And don’t play Twister with a hippo
Or light a firecracker with a zippo
Don’t date a sure bet if you’ve got holes in your socks
Don’t try to post a copper through your letter box
For that will be a squeeze but you won’t get past his boots
Don’t pull you’re little sister’s hair out by the roots
Don’t hold a bank up with a plastic BB gun
Don’t ski down K2 just because it sounds like fun
Don’t drive a Datsun in Stetson
And don’t wipe your visor with a wet one
And don’t quarrel with your wife, or venom she will hurl
She’ll say why don’t you run off with your little weather girl
And don’t dress like Lennon at a Rolling Stones revival
If you have inside your head the notion of survival
My Grandfather was a Sage-Burner.
He would light the dry twisted grass with a Zippo.
It was chromed, silver and read; "Live to ride. Ride to Live."
The sage would spark and burst into yellow orange flame.
He would blow it out and nurse the ember to full life.
Until it glowed with an evil black and red shimmer.
It smelled like bad weed.
My Grandfather would dance and flit about the space.
His thin frame with arms uplifted as if praising some unseen God.
Blowing, poking and prodding the smoke.
Into dark corners and back rooms.
Places we forgot.
I asked my Grandfather why he burned sage.
With narrowed eyes he said, "some spirits like to hang around
and cause mischief among the Human Beings.
"We burn sage so they will leave us alone."
"We burn sage so they will go away from us and bother the Whites instead."
Then he smiled and continued his dance.
E.G. Maynard.
46 & 2.
3.
I used to be a zippo
with a wondrous flame,
mesmerizing many men
mending my path to fame.
But with every flip and every trick
my liquid flame trickled slowly away.
Hinges would break with every shake,
day and day after day.
Now my own precious fluid
is nearly depleted.
Feeling less and less lucid,
more and more often I'm seated.
My hinges have broken,
leaving so many words unspoken,
for the will to speak them is gone.
Now I remember
that upon my birth
was given to me,
a lifetime warranty.
I can replace
my current disgrace
with elegant grace,
but that would not be me.
I gaze at the stars
into the dead trenches of mars,
where life used to be.
And I see
the beauty
in death.
I look at my scars
and relive their stories.
I laugh at my reactions to the pain
I thought was so intense,
until I felt the next,
laughing that I was far from slain.
For even though I'm broken
and my fluid is gone,
the memory of my flame
shall burn on and on.
My uncle took me fishing.
He’d smoke his favorite briar
Stuffing the cherry blend in with stubby
Welsh fingers more suitable for digging coal,
Than compacting mulched tobacco leaves.
A line taut between his index finger and his thumb,
He took a thready pulse of a line strung along the pole.
He told me stories of his growing up:
Painting my grandfather’s car ruined by feathers
Blown in from a cock who’d recently been plucked.
He would hand the pole to me to relight his pipe, he said.
And fumble among the hundred pocket vest
Pockets for his Zippo lighter
I liked surreptitiously to smell
And play endlessly with clicking of its top.
A trout would tug my line, bolt arching up
Above the water’s edge and topple back to tug again.
I’d play it back and forth until I played it up on shore.
And put it in a basket made of hardened wicker weave.
Some men fish for fishing's sake and others to make fishermen. (2/7/02)
I have been technically dead
and technically alive.
Escape clause, minor glitch
in my truth-machine,
but a kind of life does occasionally permeate
my real life.
I like the click and clunk of a well-made
flint ignition petroleum lighter.
‘Zippo’ light warms hands in a cold woods.
Sometimes I am the flint
sometimes the light - we all are I guess.
Before I was dead or alive
I recall signing a contract,
a ‘life’s purpose’ document
which I instantly forgot.
I still search Mind for reasons
still don’t know squat…..
but wait, I got here,
(arms akimbo, wagging my chin),
soon I’ll be leaving on a ghost train
and I’m gonna be upset,
because my much used ‘Zippo’ collection
is probably worthless.
Fishing with Dynamite
Boom! goes the dynamite as we fish for fish
No line, net or hook needed
Just a few sticks of dynamite and a Zippo
Light the stick and toss it in
Wait a few seconds and Boom!
There’s a dozen fish ready for the pot
Try not to use fast burn sticks
You’ll end up in heaven or hell
And make sure you throw it far
You don’t want splash backs
Or to sink your boat if afloat
I’ve caught sticklebacks and great whales
And a U-boat and dozen other types besides
Ate my fill in twenty nations
While dynamite fishing
It’s no good for the reefs
But we pay off the officials
No permits needed
You know how it is cash talks
So I’m allowed to fish where I want
And am off to France soon
Followed by Spain and Italy
To do some illegal Boom! fishing...
from Side of the Hill – Varied Poems... Nick Armbrister