"stogie" poems
I drank musty ale at the Illinois Athletic Club with
the millionaire manufacturer of Green River butter
one night
And his face had the shining light of an old-time Quaker,
he spoke of a beautiful daughter, and I knew he had
a peace and a happiness up his sleeve somewhere.
Then I heard Jim Kirch make a speech to the Advertising
Association on the trade resources of South America.
And the way he lighted a three-for-a-nickel stogie and
cocked it at an angle regardless of the manners of
our best people,
I knew he had a clutch on a real happiness even though
some of the reporters on his newspaper say he is
the living double of Jack London's Sea Wolf.
In the mayor's office the mayor himself told me he was
happy though it is a hard job to satisfy all the office-
seekers and eat all the dinners he is asked to eat.
Down in Gilpin Place, near Hull House, was a man with
his jaw wrapped for a bad toothache,
And he had it all over the butter millionaire, Jim Kirch
and the mayor when it came to happiness.
He is a maker of accordions and guitars and not only
makes them from start to finish, but plays them
after he makes them.
And he had a guitar of mahogany with a walnut bottom
he offered for seven dollars and a half if I wanted it,
And another just like it, only smaller, for six dollars,
though he never mentioned the price till I asked him,
And he stated the price in a sorry way, as though the
music and the make of an instrument count for a
million times more than the price in money.
I thought he had a real soul and knew a lot about God.
There was light in his eyes of one who has conquered
sorrow in so far as sorrow is conquerable or worth
conquering.
Anyway he is the only Chicago citizen I was jealous of
that day.
He played a dance they play in some parts of Italy
when the harvest of grapes is over and the wine
presses are ready for work.
2.3k
You’re a groovy tomato dancin’ with loose-tongued disco fries.
Chillin’ in limbo, sippin’ on sangria, and eatin’ on my pride.
Racin’ on a superhighway with scorchin’ thumbs and eloquent lies,
But my guts are wrenchin’ and my eyelashes are flashin’, much to your surmise.
I drank your love like a dino, now I’m bringin’ out your prehistoric side.
Baby, I can run your city with a stogie and a ****** dancin’ in disguise,
But this **** it don’t mean nothin’, or at least not what you’ve implied.
Dec 8, 2011
Dec 8, 2011 at 11:36 AM UTC
Give me a line and a Wisconsin dime
And I'll plea till I'm free as I'm doing my time
And I won't chase the man for a stogie or can
When I leave this box of mine
Give me the fudge of a Wisconsin judge
With a hole in his soul and his wink and his nudge
And his steadfast denial of a right to fair trial
And his will that will not budge
Give me the hope of a Wisconsin rope
And a beam and the dream of the chance to elope
To the land of the free in a plot 'neath a tree
On a fishing river slope
Jan 18, 2016
Jan 18, 2016 at 5:13 AM UTC
boredom is a tight shirt,
a blanket shamefully pulled over it
boredom is how whiskey learns how to taste better,
chum steeps in the waters constantly,
the fragmented dregs of flesh dance and so we catch them cautiously
with our gnaw of impatience
boredom is waking up early and laying in bed for an hour or three,
occasional outbursts of "fuuuucccckkkk" - and then it's coffee
rolling cigarettes out of abandoned butts - a true old stogie
television, *********** turned down in volume,
*** movements of no virtue
more whiskey and then the pillow and then things get interesting
Dec 13, 2013
Dec 13, 2013 at 12:30 AM UTC
By: Cedric McClester
Saudia Arabia
Protectors of the Islamic Faith
Is kingdom that’s not safe
Whose behavior makes one chafe
Under MBS it’s anybody’s guess
Who’ll be killed or at best
Locked away in a hotel
Until their wrists and ankles swell
Although the evidence is murky
In a motion that was jerky
At their embassy in Turkey
They killed Jamal Kashoggi
Before he could light a stogie
And chopped his body up
So as not to interrupt
Their plot to cover-up
How about the war in Yemen
That has no predictable ending
Seems to have ‘em hemmed in
And what they cannot hide
Is that it’s clearly genocide
Which the US is complicit in
In the name of King Salman
Look at the weapons that we send
What we can’t ignore
Are their actions we abhor
Which they must answer for
Or is it business as usuall?
Because of our refusal
To make them conform
To accepted norms
Which should set off alarms
Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2018. All rights reserved.
Oct 12, 2018
Oct 12, 2018 at 8:29 AM UTC
“I met Elvis in Louisville,
He signed my record
And kissed my cheek.”
She pointed to
The framed vinyl
Hanging beside the old cross.
The man in the rocking chair
Coughed and bit into an apple.
The woman cut into a
Seven tier molasses cake.
The radio played the National Anthem,
And the old man twirled his fingers in the air,
Whistling as the wind came in through
The window.
I’m chasing after a man who looks like my Great Grandpa.
He was a **** with a salty side eye,
Blue pearls embedded in his
Masochistic, alcoholic head.
Oil! Coal!
Black lung!
Liquid gold off the brushes,
Mines are still
There but the town is sold.
Things that
Have played out long before I
Was born.
Freshly rolled cigarettes
By hand.
His lighter was Navajo blue
And his mustache was alright
He came from San Francisco
But he was born in Wheeling
“Come on in, Jim,
The *** is boiling.”
She said from behind
The screen door.
“Hold on,
I’m talking politics with
The youngin’.”
And as he said that,
He rolled his lips in
An O.
“Put it in your mouth.”
He said as he gave me
A cigarette.
He lit it up,
And told me to inhale.
I blew the smoke out of
My nose,
I didn’t cough
But my eyes watered.
He got up and left me
On the porch with
A rolled stogie
And playing cards with
Pretty women on top.
May 17, 2015
May 17, 2015 at 4:02 PM UTC
the patrol car has left the block once more,
a bull shark circling
nearer to some shore, headlights
blared, a black silhouette steering the vehicle;
night kisses the horizon, pecks it sharp
like a bullet case
scraping the darkling pavement,
only the whitest stars visible above.
many like me stroll sidewalks at this hour,
smoking a stogie
or sitting on empty swings
in playgrounds vacant of laughter; it is better
that children sleep while they can and can dream
before the true night,
that blight of bruise blue, sirens
wailing on their way to steal away some dark man
from the streets. where I stand on an apartment stoop
I count the vehicle
for the fourth time, lurking
out around the corner, like a wolf dressed metallic.
nothing gets better come nightfall. nothing
gets done while asleep.
i slip on my shadow, hood
dark, concealing my face. lean back into the steps
and light another cigarette. inhale.
exhale. most don’t have
to worry: their paleness turns
them ghostly, invisible, to the patrolling cars.
but I wear my darkness. i wish I knew
how to make sparks fly,
have them issue from throat, crack
into splinters of glass. the law tells me to sit
but I refuse. i am a phosphorus
fuse; i am whitened;
but i am impoverished,
and I too have my own reasons to be frightened.
Apr 22, 2016
Apr 22, 2016 at 12:48 PM UTC
Byron loves to golf, but in the dead of winter, when he has his wood stove radiating heat, he likes to play darts. The board hangs on a door separating the main garage from his store heap of empty beer cans, crushed and bagged. Thousands of them. He also has a ****** stuck on a wall. The **** just flows out to the ground. He always warns us not to dump in his ****** The very thought irks me. Like golf, Byron threatens to “kick my *** in darts. He has a predilection for my posterior in the most unthreatening way. In fact, he may be homophobic. He throws a dart like an Amazon pygmy. Fatal to success. However, golf is never far from his mind during the raging snows we get. Although I helped with the spelling and small stuff, Byron penned the following. I came up with the title.
Intimations of Fairway Play
I'd rather hit the links today,
Take an eight on five;
Blame the wind or shift of weight,
Than shovel out my drive.
I'd rather search under trees,
Twigs, leafs and water;
And curse the squirrel that thought my shot
Was food for winter fodder.
I'd rather have a downward lie
On pock-marked naked ground;
Than sit and watch Keegan Bradley
Get it up and down.
I'd rather have a green fringe putt
That lines up with goose droppings;
Or see a fine three footer lip
Than hear the snow plough coming.
I'd rather shoot a ninety-nine,
And pay for rounds of ale;
Than sit in front of my wood stove
During snow and sleet and hail.
I'd rather shank or stub my ****
Yes, get a double bogie;
Or miss a hole-in-one by inches
And put up with Francie's stogie.
Francie can card seventy-two
And make an eagle putt;
It matters little what he does,
I know I'll kick his but.
Yet still I languish near my fire
And watch the Pros play golf;
At Pebble Beach or someplace warm
I wish they'd all **** off.
Jun 9, 2014
Jun 9, 2014 at 2:30 PM UTC
the town had just come into view
as the western sky turned a brilliant blue
he pulled up alongside a prickly pear
lit up a stogie and rested his mare
how long will this beauty last
he'd wonder
the calm was hushed by distant thunder
no time to dawdle
as the blue went gray
it's rollin' in fast
best be on our way
the echoes roll in the western sky
farmer's plea answered
by the Lord on high
let's pray for peace and the end of change
Our Heaven on earth
this open range
Apr 3, 2025
Apr 3, 2025 at 5:29 PM UTC
My soul use to be open
But now is closed.
Like some detour, on a dirt road
You'll never know
Where these thoughts, could go.
Once open, like an all night diner
Was where you could find my mind
But now, the light is out
And closed, is the sign.
Once this soul had glistened
With trust
Shimmered all it's thoughts
Like gold
Now it is shriveled and dry
Not worth a cent
With thoughts too old.
A day late, a dollar short
Once people were proud of me
Now they just set me on fire
To light their stogie.
This old soul, use to be good
Like this old bottle of gin
Now they're both empty and useless
You got what you wanted
Now go buy some fascist label to replace us
We know our place,
Upon the dusty shelve
Next to the roses, you bought last year
Wilted, dry and deteriorating
From lack of interest.
Feb 24, 2015
Feb 24, 2015 at 1:53 PM UTC
Come with me
down the ladder of success a few steps
to a snowflake
in the wintertime, not to borrow
from Robert Frost,
to see Miss Merry Christmas
with her white muffler
and her grin like Jacqueline Onassis.
We'll find some competent people
to climb that
slippery, slimy, scratchy, stogie
ladder of success
with sweat, blood, and tears, to
borrow from Winston Churchill
Dec 7, 2017
Dec 7, 2017 at 2:56 PM UTC