Stone Soup Croutons, 6/29/15, Self-Exile

This third installment of Stone Soup Croutons comes a bit late due to a variety of reasons too absurd to mention. The piece was finished before I left Monday night, I just didn't have the time to type it in with just a few minor edits. As always, the poem below is taken from bits and pieces of Stone Soup Poetry's open mic this past Monday. Apologies for the intro being longer than I expected.

This week we had my friend and mentor Ron Goba feature, which is always exciting. I utilized almost everyone on the open mic. Jason reads stuff I've read already from last week's Oddball Magazine, so that feels like cheating. James Van Looy goes on after me to end the night. A couple of others I wasn't able to hear their work due to behind-the-scenes stuff. I feel bad that I haven't borrowed from Jonathan J. Joseph for the second or third week in a row.

I didn't bother borrowing from Ron's poems partly because I was so busy recording large parts of his feature. Also, I'm a little closer to Ron's work than others, so I want to pen a more detailed and specific response to his reading which may or may not make its way to this blog or elsewhere.

The only other thing about week is that this poem had a weird start. Lee Varon, who starts the open mic most weeks at Stone Soup, has been reading poems from her newest series called "Letters to a Pedophile." Last week, I lifted from her work and the poem ended up not being too dark. This week, the first stanza kind of took over the rest of the exercise.


Stone Soup Croutons, 6/29/15

Man takes drink from fountain
fifty-one yards away from
nearest school playground.

Another manifesto
festers unsent to world
film misogynoir screenplay
unproduced.

Two trains crossing past
your stationary car
 x amount of MPH.
How long before
anyone cares you're here.

Static enough to transfer
NPR into Japanese
you never studied.

Where is my philanthropist
you wonder. 

My mother died too.
I feel things too I think.

What if I don't want to be
a work in progress?
Why can't one just be done?

You've not shed even
a single receipt
of what should be
your old life.

A robot made with 1970's
TV technology
could move through life better
unless you were the human inside
flailing around

teaching your little sister no
in the worst way possible.

If you fake your death
will anyone try to prove you wrong
or right?

Bathe in vinegar,
finger prints still dirtied
and there.

You faked lameness enough
they came for your legs with hammers.

Blame eugenics
when it was just
ur genetics.

Is this a poem about your death,
and if not, can anyone help?

Special thanks to Lee Varon, Sarah Vickery, David Miller, M.P. Carver, Tom Daley, Surat Lozowick, Erik Nelson, Martha Boss, Joseph Capehart, Colin Killick, Mary Honaker, and everyone else in attendance who read or just listened.