they chain you up
strip you down
the lights never go off—
just the screams shift
to new throats.
the guards play blind,
or worse, they bet
on who breaks first.
some poor bastard
bleeds in the shower
and another one
learns not to cry too loud.
this place doesn’t correct—
it cultivates.
grows men like tumors
full of rage,
their names erased,
but not their pain.
you let them rot
in filth and fire,
then send them home—
like matchsticks
snapped and ready to burn,
now all they want is revenge.
matchsticks s
t
r
i
k
e
passion
sulfur dioxide
e x p l o d e s ~
fierce
fiery
fervor
folding the trees, branch by branch;
rolling the leaves.
slender sticks play eye tricks;
fat and juicy ones’ carried downwards.
small branches gathered;
large ones, heave ho.
these matchsticks aren’t lit,
and I don’t know
how my small forest thrives
…and then a sound
an engine near, grinding
through my Winter lookout,
across the way, creating empty space
for kids to safely play.
the trees are stressed; and relieved
as the roaring stops
at the edge. on edge
they want to dress their best,
in Spring’s verdancy -
it seems an emergency
to get on with it; buds
will show up after the tempest,
for survival of the fittest,
at least that’s the way
the wind blows now
…then silence.
DUCHAMP URINAL
toilette
to wet
LOWRY PEOPLE
matchsticks
in pics
HOPPER URBANITY
film stills
sans frills
Up in long bands of gray and white
angry clouds are whirling,
fingers stretch downwards to the ground,
faint traces of swirling.
the farmer sees it and suspects
what nature is unfurling.
Glad at least it came in the day,
not stole in come evening,
he locks the barn and heads downstairs,
in basement remaining.
The air moans loudly when it starts,
vortex boldly roaring,
snaps tree-trunks off like they’re matchsticks,
Sends the branches soaring.
Birds fly off in a panicked flock,
much too scared for crowing,
the wheat flexes, and flattens low,
disturbed from its growing.
A mad chaos, its motion blurred
by the rush of spinning,
if any storm-chasers lived here,
you know they’d be grinning.
But alas, this is not the plains,
with their F-5s looming,
oh no, this is upstate New York,
and those hills aren’t moving.
The block the flow, they interrupt,
winds are quickly fading,
it barely lasted three minutes,
the dark whorl abating.
Edit on line 7
There he was – my first boyfriend ever -
leaning against the sports car of a friend who drove him
over to my town to see me before I left for college
even though we had broken up a few years back.
I had met him at church camp several years earlier -
John, with that cute elfin face,
legs like matchsticks that seemed half as wide as mine
and the sweet sensitive nature
of a kid who worried so much about his parents’ marriage
he’d already developed ulcers at age 14.
He was looking kind of cool, wearing silver tinted shades
that didn’t allow me to see his baby blues beneath them
as he leaned against that sweet ride, smiled and said so little.
I later learned his parents had split up,
but not one friend of his whom I asked
could tell me where John ended up.
I google him; I search on Facebook; still I can’t find him.
That unexpected visit – not so important then -
has become one more of the many ephemera
in the sum total of my long-traveled life.
If you can find shelter when the firmament rumbles
And drips spears of weighty waters
Keep about you the hope that clear skies might come,
Be glad for the storied house that a stray seed built,
That you might claim, and in it, brave the storm.
Heaven takes no command from men
that are stuck by the roadside under makeshift nests;
Prepare, then, to wade from November’s head to April’s tail.
Find friends in the things that crawl, things that creep and jibe.
Say comrade to the tippy tapping tango of rain by the tree’s end.
Before the tree gives much comfort and you forget to miss the sun,
Before you curse Icarus for being too kind to the warmer things,
You will know that the earth can be dark and unforgiving;
The wind stings your skin like lashes from an iced belt
and the cold envelopes your adolescent patience.
The first men gave unto you rocks to strike light and conjure warmth,
Do not yet lead praises due north nor kindle your grass roof,
Because this shelter is made from paper, petrol,
Paraffin, and things that burn;
And you are matchsticks bathed in kerosene.
You try to make them civilized and grown-up,
but the words are infants,
they want to crawl around and yell for a bit.
You know that an eye is upon you.
watching you in that whelping room
where creation rearranges molecules
into a planetary system of speech
made of matchsticks and glue.
A poem is about to be splashed,
onto a speeding window of light.
Logic and reason must first
bash their bulbous heads together,
until their mechanical, self-winding brains
fall out.
The collective humming of incubators,
begins to lipread your silence.
A process similar to hand washing.
Eventually a swaddled indigenous form,
unwraps itself,
it begins to walk upright.
Matchsticks and glue
form readable fragments.
You begin to hope,
that someone inside that watching eye
will name what you have done -
even attempt,
to explain it to you.
Tinderbox
Just a little box that holds the matchsticks,
compact box with matches inside
Just a little box that holds the matchsticks
Yet they hold the strike of death!
Yet they fire the final flame;
How could something so inconsequential be to blame?
Just a little box that holds the matchsticks,
Ignite and spark in a trash can at the park,
The spark caught the paper
And made a flame so light,
Until all in the trash can caught up in fire bright.
10/24/2022 This or That Sponsored by: Edward Ibeh
Tinderbox
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
Another staff meeting,
there are lizards at the table,
a few goats, an ass.
I know they return to
the fold of a superficial normality
at weekends,
some even rock climb
or enjoy a quiz-night at their local pub,
one builds model ships out of matchsticks,
but here they exist zoologically
on the musky fumes of
their animal instincts.
I consider myself human
but at times my self-image slips
especially when i'm a cog in the machine
The actual boss is not here
yet his name floats in the air
as if powered by a constant
airconditioned camel fart.
Drone, drone, drone,
forced laughter.
Intimidation is in the air
it is as thick as hand soap.
The squeakiest wheel pipes up –
kill me now.
We are all expendable and know it.
Even the warthog
at the head of the table.
The warthog glares at me
while his forced grin smacks my face
like an oily rag.
I catch my reflection in a window,
I am turning into a bedside lamp.
Hours later, driving home, body drained;
bottom sore from extreme sitting,
a mad impossible dream.
I want to go back
and beat the warthog over his head
with my 60 watt brain
until he promises never, ever
to speak to me again.
I had a brain like an old motorbike,
I rode it back and forth
just to get laid by whomever, and that strange one
who kept cats under her long skirt.
Truth is a marmalade calligraphy.
I yodel blood-songs
prophets have stitched to my flesh.
Truth sleeps under a stone.
No one can number the stones.
I dream of Macadamia and Muscadine
of pretty girls all in a row.
Truth throbs.
Marimba music and matchsticks,
Why all these M sonics?
Mango
mildew, marmalade ghosts.
Why not?
Miss me mother?
The bike ended up in a heap -
Its motor whines on.
Truth is whatever’s left over
after the counting of things.
I’ve asked you for love, but my heart
Is a playground of pains like matchsticks & veld,
I’m a broken-pieced soul.
I prayed for success, instead all I see
Is them whammies in numbers of mega bus,
All tight up blocking every hole to breathe.
I asked for this dear life but in it I see tears pinning my cheeks.
I’m inches away from crying such blood left in me,
Momma is with no degrees,
Father left in the ages of storm
And the shelter I have pours water when it rains.
My friends, the ones I grew up with, changed with lanes ‘cause
I fail to even get handwork to make a living in me.
My hair is greyish not by mistake,
The world I live in favours the sons and daughters of the rich,
Without connections I’m just moss in the middle of the Kalahari.
When I try to keep up, they are dragging me down
Like a prey impala on the canines of lion, why me?!
Why do I have to feel pain all emotionally, physically
Like I was bred with it hereditarily?
Why can’t I just get a hold of myself once?!
Guide me please!! I haven’t lost faith in you.
Time kisses each upon a cheek with timeless teeth of smile.
Even hungry mice as we, who walk in other’s shoes a mile.
Along the empires’ ridge we stroll with nighttime sky, engaged.
Impoverished, as our brethren watch, with hearts aflame, enraged.
Stories we disguise in different form, atoms shifting in chaotic dance.
Clothing manifested from our storm, a destiny some see as only chance.
Slim silhouettes of matchsticks burning, one or in a pack.
Knots untying, unifying all the envy that we lack.
Broken, born, or lost as halves; to be or not to be,
Whatever cost to make each other into whole, you see;
Solutions searching randomly, ingredients like dust
Upon a chalkboard scribbled fierce, as snow-white rust
Or written clear, on pages here,
And then erased.
I wish to try paint the portrait of manhood
Tinkle a Little
For what else except humility makes humans angels?
For being a man is hard but that's something I wish to become before my tombstone days
Manhood
The unexplained and unidentified phenomenon of etymology
I've been told real men have a salvation in their touch
Eyes with gallons of gasoline two matchsticks short
And a heart filled with fire hoses and riot gear but yet still bonteous in the offering of love
They have a chest of a dragons lungs
And anguish that a lady with a bowl of cheese cannot satiate
I've known men with hearts like these
Their minds are made of diamonds
Formed from constant pressure of the rigours of tied responsibilities
Perhaps in a thousand years
We will be diamonds from the dust
For anyone is born male but not everyone is a man.
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