Stone Soup Croutons, 5-2-16, Peace Out

Stone Soup Croutons is a weekly poem I write using lines and impressions picked up from poems overheard from Stone Soup's open mic readers and features. I figure out a title either then or later. It's likely some of the poets I thank at the end won't even be able to figure out which lines were inspired by their work. To paraphrase Lorne Michaels, the poem doesn't go up because it's good; it goes up because it's Tuesday morning.

Praise be to Martha Boss, Dan Shanahan and Carol Weston for reading last night and giving Stone Soup's forty-fifth anniversary month a proper start. It was a wonderful gathering with just as many people gathered to listen as they were to read on the open mic. This is what I got from yesterday. Title is riffed from Carol's "Peace Fire" magnum opus. It felt right.


Peace Out

Guns and knives make you go
to a less beautiful place.

Meth is your Macbeth
dagger already in the back.

Your butterfly trip
to the moon is halted,

tied off on the side of the world
off the side of the real world,

listening for a voice to say  "I will"

to you, a "we" that includes yourself

A difficult one, in need of a core
to fill your wounds with,

a safe home with colors
you can choose,

your sad the happy
you can tell apart.,

cured of God-given loneliness
able to prepare for next year's winter,

take one last swim before the ice
the cold of your skin

steaming in your home's warmth,
your own white lotus burning.

"Eleanor" is really DiDi. Long story.

Special thanks to Lee Varon, Karen S. Gault, Edward S. Gault, Cosette Gault, Surat Lozawick, LUCCI, Yvonne, David Miller, Navah The Buddaphliii, DiDi Delgado, C.C. Arshagra, Martha Boss, Dan Shanahan and Carol Weston.