Matchbook lyrics

Torn from a book

Missing its pages

Unnumbered, unread

Filled with 20 sticks

But not all of wood

Once so very common

Lain about in glass trays

The venues of public due

When smoking claimed

Its hold now forbidden

Such a rarity to find

Dysfunctional in aging

Waterproof in the rats

Used as timed fuses

By clever saboteurs

Then struck upon it

The book's cover rough

A dull strip banded

Often ornate covers

Adverts medium faire

There in regal splendor

From beneath its cover

Its safe haven, unscorched

There pour forth a shower

A spark of magnificence

That tiny supernova

It turned absolute darkness

Into an instant of brilliance

Whites, blues, sparkling

With pungent shards of sulphur

The trailing tiny embers

Streaked downward so

Like bomblets trailing

Traces of smoke ending

On the edges of black

The intensity fading

No longer penetrating

But instead slowly fading

The yellow flame draws up

Like a tear upon a lash

Held by its distal end

Until the impulse of heat

Tells the brain to react

Shaken briskly its life

Strained away by force

The trailing smoke light

Its odor wafts out unkept

To fill the emptiness of light

With a stench of quenching

The death of brief brilliance

And so it is 'til all be spent

The book that's never read

Glanced upon occasionally

Until the light is alit no more

Then unceremoniously discarded