Stone Soup Croutons, 6-27-16, Wipe

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 (and sometimes the rest of the poem) later. To paraphrase Lorne Michaels, the poem doesn't go up because it's good; it goes up because it's Tuesday morning.

There was an extended open mic last night, and everything went right. A full house with plenty of new people here. Several names below appear for the first time ever and it's exciting to share the words, nonsensical as they may be.

Wipe

Attempting sacred sans profane.

Is an absence of anything
a cheap attempt at profundity?

If the Atlantic drained overnight,
would we react equally in awe and horror,

the urge to run narrowly giving way
to dropping down on both knees.

Some of us call that our birthdays.

Every year, born again, embarrassed,
we leave each annual afterbirth
in the recycle bins.

Somehow, it's still gone on trash day
by the time we're back form work.

Our lease to live is renewed once again.
We are never consulted on exact terms.

Instead, we fill out surveys,
circle "fine" for each answer,
 not wanting to look like complainers,
save fill-in opinions for our headstones, 

dream of omnipotence, shaking our own
caged bodies while they struggle in sleep,
standing absolved from our self-destruction.

It gets harder each year to dump
our dirty laundry for someone else,
not tripping over it later.

We shatter and dare loved ones
to gather us with ungloved hands.

The angels behind our demons,
named after all our lost friends,
throw knives out the window

By morning, we shake in disgust
at our inability to cut deeper wounds.

Instead we resort to pens on napkins
the whiteness perhaps enough to hold loneliness.

Not shown: Deb Priestly, who came in just after the last poet.

Special thanks to Rich Herb, Nancy Messom, Chris Fitzgerald, Pamela Taylor, David Miller, Lee Varon, Olivia Doh, Surat Lozowick, Martha Boss, Dexter Garcia, Angelica Maria Aguilera, Preston Stokes, LuzJenifer Martinez and Deborah Priestly.