Stone Soup Croutons, 10-24-16, The Final Testimony of Mr. Lucky

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. I've done fifty of them now, and you can access them all here.

Joyce Angela Jellison featured last night. I had a weird night. Already running late, my bus held me up because there was a passenger we almost called an ambulance for. He claimed he was low on blood sugar before conking out. The driver and I checked his breathing and his pulse before he let out a huge snoring/belching sound. Nope. Just drunk. Probably a waste of the cranberry juice I got for him.

All of this is to say that between this and the small open mic, coupled with the fact that I arrived just after Mignon Ariel King finished her open mic spot with her musician friend. I was in a weird place. I just picked up the pieces and did the best I could (trying to begin with a reference to music) and stopped at the end of the night. I had some kind of character. I might return to it. Typed it while listening to "B-Boy Bouillabaisse"from Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique for no discernible reason. Here's what I got.


The Final Testimony of Mr. Lucky

Everything I know I either learned
from strumming catgut wire
or stringing the guts of a bad crooner
until he yelled like a past-prime cat in heat.

I can't say which is true for sure, officer.
I exercise open carry and always hold
three different stories per event at all times.
A man without an alabi is like a beached whale
with no voice to sing their swan song,

or an empty womb without a good time.
Everything dies, but why not lie a little first.
How is that not a zen-like balance?

Like my friend always told me,  
Your mom's a whore. He loved women
as much as the next Trump rally-man.
I have no hate. just a blues tune
I have absolutely no right to.

I've asked the voiceless their story.
They're quite capable of telling it, thank you.
Don't ask me to repeat it. I can't quote
things set in marble reliably.

Apologies to Mignon for not getting her or her music name on the list.

Special thanks to Mignon Ariel King, Mike Konow, Chris Robbins, Neal Katz, Martha Boss, Nancy Messam, Deborah Priestly, Joyce Angela Jellison. and James Van Looy.