Stone Soup Croutons, 10-31-16, Of The Dead

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.

Much love to Teisha Dawn Twomey, who not only read an amazing set from her new book but also took home Best Costume with Tim Gager. 

Much wash more Bob's Burgers.

With all the joy of last night, I apologize that today's poem is another one based on next week's all-important vote (if you didn't do it this past weekend). It's just going to be this way until mid-November. If that..


Of The Dead

Let's wait till after the election
to find out who does the dishes
for the next four years

as millions chose between
meth in the veins by their genitals
or the best crack in the world

and gain new employment
as fuel for the one-percent's fire,
another winter of staved-off promises.

We'll cast off pickets of protest
to delay our own turn, certainty
thrown out like morning compost,

fueling the soil of our leader's
entirely symbolic garden as they gloat
over both victories and defeats.

Till then, let's count the pumpkins
on our block, name them after
all of history's hit and runs,

stave off sleep while someone
comes in our bedrooms
to find our last good veins,

shut the lights before undressing
unable to spot our voyeurs
filming their own slasher film.

Our horror films have unicorn rooms,
children unable to cope with requests
to look up from their phones.

This is a small town.
Better to be stared at by strangers
than by our neighbors.
 
Imagine being in a cit,
all those lives screaming
Organize! Organize!

We'd rather not gather.
That's what cemeteries are for.
The creek moves forward for us.

Short but sweet. Someone even took the number one spot!

Special thanks to Bill, Lee Varon, Gawaine Ross, Tim Gager, David Agee, Martha Boss, Chris Fitzgerald, Teisha Dawn Twomey Mignon Ariel King and James Van Looy.