People frequently ask me why I don't contribute to Stone Soup's open mic very often (maybe once every fiscal quarter). It's something I've resisted doing for personal reasons, but last night I tried a new experiment to see I could find a way to be comfortable going up every week and not repeat the same poems over and over.
During yesterday's reading, I tried a writing exercise where I took overheard lines from nearly everyone's poems on the open mic and quickly wrote up "response stanzas," sometimes even combining lines from separate poems in to one stanza. I even got some inspiration from Ralph Pennel's feature. I only left out poems from the regulars, Jason Wright and James Van Looy. Jason's because I had heard his poems before and James because I went on before him so he could still close the night. Those were the only rules for exclusion I made up, but that's subject to change.
The result from said experiment is the poem below. Perhaps the start of a regular thing, perhaps not.
Stone Soup Croutons, 6/15/15
Undressing as journalism
lacks the barest notion
of objectivity.
Open micers opus
six introductions
in search of text.
Don't tell your doctor
about wanting to dart
into Marshall's
for appropriate dress
before reentering
the Pride Parade on Boylston.
Your MD will prescribe
rhubarb placebo
substituting thrill
with defeat in your diet.
The days get old
like bulletholes
impossibly fast
yet you can't not
tell each one apart
for the near-disaster,
an ocean of galaxy
of depression,
no gravity, no water
and you still drown.
The human computer
revealed it's faulty program
when it took twelve seconds to finish
a twelve year old scotch
then sat with arms crossed
for twelve hours straight.
Exit the warrior
today's Tom Sawyer
has a 50 yard restraining order
for his angry drum solo.
Pick a number 1 to 1,100
for every one of my possible
current emotions.
And you'll guess right.
Trust me.
I'm Jesus and Elvis
in a freestyle rap battle,
combined vocab
all you need to know
about love and why it fails.
Special thanks to Stone Soup open mic poets Jason Roberts, Alex Hicks, Angelica, Martha Boss, Big Poppa Ben, M.P. Carver, Clay Ventre, Dana Hill, Jayzentaur, Sunny and "Aspie" Chris Robbins.
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