Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Stone Soup Croutons, 6-19-17, Pay Attention



Stone Soup Croutons is a weekly poem I write using lines and impressions butchered 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. You can read the other ones I've done since 2015 here. I'm two years in and won't be stopping just yet.

Last week was an open mic. Something happened. I don't want to get into it, but I ended up writing the most negative crouton poem yet. I've done some negative pieces before, but this was unprecedented. Thankfully, a quick chat with Rachael Ieszenberg this morning convinced me to not publish the version I came up with last night.  Instead, I wrote a new poem this morning.


Pay Attention

It is possible
to scream shut up
between Marlboros,

drawl loud enough
to scratch stop
Shakespeare mid-sonnet,

cause fish to flop
n surfaces, forgetting
they can't bicycle,

even give pause
to street poets outside
make them listen for something.



Special thanks to Rachael Ieszenberg, Chris Fitzgerald, Martha Boss, Nancy Messom, Deb Priestly and James Van Looy.

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